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Book 

CopyrigtitS" 

COKRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINIS- 
TRATION OF A STATE'S INSTITU- 
TIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 



BY 



ARTHUR LEFEVRE 

SOMETIME SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH 



OF 



ORGANIZATION FOR THE 

ENLARGEMENT BY THE STATE OF TEXAS OF ITS 

INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 



AUSTIN, TEXAS 

VONiBoECKMANN-JONES Co., PRINTERS 
1914 



THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINIS- 
TRATION OF A STATE'S INSTITU- 
TIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 



BY 



ARTHUR LEFEVRE 

SOMETIME SECRETARY FOR RESEARC 



OF 



ORGANIZATION FOR THE 

ENLARGEMENT BY THE STATE OF TEXAS OF ITS 

INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 




AUSTIN, TEXAS 
Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., Printers 
1914 



LB ^3-^ 
14- 



All bulletins published by the Organization for the 
Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions 
of Higher Education are intended to stimulate critical 
thought. In order that correct conclusions may be 
reached the Board of Control would welcome care- 
fully considered communications discussing the prob- 
lems treated in such publications, or any other ques- 
tions concerning the State's work of education. 



Copyright 1914 by Arthur Lefevre 

JAN26i9lb 



)CU393421 



U CONTENTS 



^' PAET I 



Features of Organization for Which the State 
Legislature is Kesponsible 

(With Special Reference to the State of Texas) 

I. Prerequisite Conceptions 1 

II. Diverse Institutions. Two Eemedies for the Evils of 
Eivalry Under Precarious Support — The Question of 
"Duplication^^ 5 

III. Inexpediency of a Central Board of Control. 

Historical Summary — ^The Standard System — The 
Only Needed Adjustment of the Texas System 11 

IV. State Normal Schools. 

Correlation with Colleges^ — Schools for Defectives ... 24 

V. Voluntary Co-operation. 

Timely Suggestions : The Necessary Tax ; Appor- 
tionment of the Proposed Tax; Co-operation by Fed- 
eral Government; with Colleges; with Theological 
Seminaries; by Individual Citizens 33 

PAET II 

Internal Organization and Administration 

I. Preliminary. 

Internal Effects of Precarious Support — A Needed 
Service — Method of Presentation 70 

II. The Governing Board. 

Eeasons for the Essential Features of the American 
System — Proper Nature of the Board^s Control — Ee- 
lation to the President — Two Theories of University 
Management — The Two Essential Eesponsibilities — 
The Status of the Faculty — Faculty Participation in 
University Government — The Cornell Plan — Prac- 
ticable Solutions — The Final Eesponsibility 85 



IV CONTENTS i 

III. Business Management. 

Bookkeeping — The Budget — Business Manager — 
Grounds and Buildings — ^Financial Eeports and 
Audits — Mistaken Analogies — Suggestions — Eegis- 
trar^s Office — Advertising 138 

lY. The Executive Officer. 

Full Conception of the Presidential Office — Essential 
Functions — The Problem of Elimination — The Atti- 
tude of Colleagueship with Faculty — Secondary Ad- 
ministrators 196 

y. The Faculty. 

The Deanship — Faculty Secretaries — Libraries and 
Museums — Department Organization — Eank-Ten- 
ure-Salaries^ — Eecruiting a Faculty — Freedom of 
Teaching— Ideals 234 

yi. Administration of the Curriculum. 

Existing College Curricula— The Elective System — 
Mistaken Devices — Credit for Quality — Grading — 
Admission Eequirements — Proper Eelation of the 
American University to the American High School. 
N'ote on Elementary Schools. N'ote on Industrial 
Training , ; 312 

yil. Student Life and Work. 

Undergraduates — Graduate Division — Extension Di- 
vision — Athletics — Dormitories and Fraternities — 
Student Self- Government — The Honor System — Co- 
Education — Concludinof Eemarks 407 



'■i=) 



Appendix — Note on the subject of Part I : 515 

Index 517 



THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF A 
STATE'S INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION 



PART I 

FEATURES OF ORGANIZATION FOR WHICH THE STATE 
LEGISLATURE IS RESPONSIBLE 

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE STATE OF TEXAS 

I. PREEEQUISITB CONCEPTION'S 

It is needful, to-day in America, to pause at the outset of 
any serious discussion either of organization or administration, by 
a man who does not share the prevalent notion that organization 
and administration mean the same thing, to explain the very ideas 
to be invoked by the words. It is the confusion of those ideas, 
and not ^^education^"' that is really "the great American super- 
stition." The misconception is manifested in almost every social 
or political movement. The desire to "do things'' is seldom di- 
rected by knowledge of the importance of accomplishing them 
through proper agencies. Or, only some nearest relation or par- 
ticular consequence of a measure is regarded, and its distant con- 
nections or permanent tendencies are ignored. Associated with 
the main misconception, in educational affairs, has been the notion 
tliat "executive ability" is a thing apart from and independent 
of masterful knowledge of the business in hand. Also, because 
financiering combinations have been successfully administered 
Avithout being truly organized, it has been supposed that univer- 
sities (and school systems) could be prospered in like manner. 
In this error it has been forgotten that a dividend was the simple 
object and criterion of success in the financiering combination; 
whereas a university should be a true organism, not a mere combi- 
nation, and its parts can healthfully subsist only in an atmosphere 
of confidence and fellowship and through spontaneous mutual 
service. 



2 PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS 

In an organism it is not sufficient that there should be a sepa- 
ra^te agency for discharging every essential function, nor is the 
right idea completed by adding the conception of the proper 
autonomy of each organ. Genuine organization requires, besides 
both of those characteristics, that every organ should sympathize 
and co-operate with ever}^ other organ. The administrative organ 
of the entire organism can not fully or rightly discharge its func- 
tion unless that condition exists. 

If disorganization has occurred at any other point, the admin- 
istrative function strives to restore the local responsibility and the 
general harmony; and in the wise order of nature administration 
is not conceived as established for the deranged part until both its 
local responsibility and the general harmony have been restored — 
that is to say, until it has been organized again. On the other 
hand, if a university or college president acts as an autocrat 
usurping or inhibiting functions not his own, or if all within the 
sphere of his administration can not depend upon his competency 
and courage and on his absolute fidelity in transmitting the com- 
munications from part to part made through him and on the com- 
plete truthfulness of his statements to any part concerning an- 
other part, — then such a university, however busily administered, 
is disorganized at its most vital point; and its condition is, in the 
strict sense' of the word, insane, and comparable to the condition 
of a body administered by a brain whose reports, messages, and 
commands are faithless, conflicting, founded in vain conceits. 

Disorganization of a different sort, but equally injurious, ensues, 
if a governing board transgresses its proper legislative function. 
Supreme power of every kind, subject only to the law of the land, 
is vested in the governing board ; but nothing short of an incurable 
state of insurrection could justify the assumption of administrative 
functions normally committed to the executive officer of the board 
or belonging to the faculty. The condition is comparable to the 
suspension of a country's regular laws and the proclamation of 



PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS 3 

martial law. Any overstepping of the bounds of its proper func- 
tion should be recognized as a last recourse by the governing board 
of an educational institution. Such a remedy is applicable only 
to a desperate disorder, because the remedy would be worse than 
the disease in any case less than desperate. 

Worst of all may be the disorganization superinduced by im- 
proper exercise of power by a state legislature. Such disorganiza- 
tion is absolute and permanent, and without remedy until the 
institution involved is, as it were, refounded by another legisla- 
ture. There is, indeed, truth in the Greek maxim, "No law is a 
good law unless it is has good executors^^; but Commissioner 
Draper, of the State of New York, speaks out of an abundance of 
experience and observation when he says: "Troubles in adminis- 
tration [of educational institutions] seldom come from the pres- 
ence of vicious characters; they arise from a confusion of powers 
and prerogatives, and from a disposition which men seem to have 
to direct matters the most about which they know the least. When 
powers are based upon principles the troubles will largely disap- 
pear." The fundamental principle for the case in question^ is that 
the legislature ought never to infringe upon the sphere of admin- 
istration. It is the part of the legislature to create a governing 
body for the institution, in the way that is shown to be best calcu- 
lated to secure the most competent and faithful execu.tors of the 
Staters general purpose. Such an organ having been created, to 
it should be committed the government and control of the insti- 
tution. It is the function of the board of regents to govern the 
institution, and to supervise the administraion of all its enter- 
prises in accordance with a soundly organized procedure. The 
legislature, of course, retains a regulative power which, normally, 
ought to be exercised only in its decisions concerning appropria- 
tions of money in addition to the proceeds of an established tax, 
for new developments recommended by the governing board. 



4 PREREQUISITE COI^CEPTIONS 

In a previous study, published March 28, 1912, the present 
writer offered the first results of his endeavors to fulfill the duties 
and opportunities of "Secretary for Research'' for the Organiza- 
tion he had the honor of serving. That investigation, entitled "A 
Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universities and Agri- 
cultural Colleges in Fourteen States/' contributed, as its main 
object, a reliable practical calculation of the amount of money 
that must be supplied annually by the State of Texas for the sup- 
port of its three institutions of higher education, if the people of 
this State desire to secure for themselves the average serviceable- 
ness of the corresponding institutions "in all the States that have 
seriously undertaken to secure efficient services from such institu- 
tions." 

Of course, efficiency depends more upon the wisdom of persons 
than upon the financial basis, but it was not possible m a statis- 
tical discussion to take the wisdom factor into accoimt. The 
present study enters the domain of judgments based upon prin- 
ciples and practical experience, as distinguished from calculatious 
based upon statistics, yet even here it is possible only to consider 
arrangements conducive to good results. In the ultimate execu- 
tion of any design it is the individual that counts. We are prone 
to put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men. 
Still, a bad system of organization demoralizes the cooperative 
spirit of the group and leads to the selection of weak or bad in- 
dividuals. 



II. DIVEESE INSTITUTIONS 

The scope of the study presented in Part I of this book must be 
limited by an immediate reference to the existing state institutions 
of higher education in the State of Texas. It would go beyond its 
subject to include modifications of organization applicable only to 
the private corporations of endowed or denominational institu-, 
tions. 

The individual permanence and autonomy of the three institu- 
tions already established by the State of Texas — University of 
Texas, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, State College 
for Women^might, without rashness, be assumed; but it will be 
advantageous to consider the question thoroughly. 

Two Remedies for Evils of Rivo^hy Under Precarious Support 

All the arguments advanced in favor of combining two or more 
state institutions of higher education in one university, or in 
favor of one central board of control for separate institutions, 
reduce to two: (1) duplication of work, and (2) injurious rivalry 
before legislatures in ever-recurring scrambles for appropriations. 

The second argument refers to a serious evil in many States; 
and, if there were no remedy but consolidation, decisive weight 
would attach to this argument in spite of valid objections to re- 
stricting all educational work beyond secondary schools to one 
institution. But there is another remedy for the evil. A state 
tax for the institutions of higher education adequate to their 
regular support and definitely apportioned between them by the 
law levying the tax, would remove the ground of injurious rivalry. 
It is remarkable that this effective remedy for the evils of rivalry 
under precarious support seems not to suggest itself to advocates 
of concentration or of central boards. This subject is developed in 
Chapter Y, treating of voluntar}^ co-operation, where the tax 



6 THE QUESTION OP DUPLICATION^ 

necessary for the maintenance and improvement of the Texas 
institutions and the proper method of apportioning it are discussed. 

The Question of "Duplication" 

There remains the argument founded on duplication of work. 
Perusal of many published discussions of the question has not dis- 
covered a single attempt to estimate the extra cost* of duplica- 
tion. Even as strong a man as President "Van Hise contents 

himself with assuming that duplication causes such waste that 
separate institutions must be consolidated, or that the objectionable 
central boards ^''are inevitable." In my judgment the case is by 
no means so bad or so hopeless. Speaking of a separate univer- 
sity and agricultural college, it is exclaimed, "Each of these in- 
stitutions must have a department of physics and a department of 
chemistry," also that there must be "in each studies in English 
and economics, French and German." Such exclamations are not 
arguments. In cases where each institution has overcrowded labor- 
atories and insufficient teaching force, how would the cost be mate- 
rially reduced by removing to one of them the students at the 



*Tlie report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1912, issued six 
months after the publication of Part I of this study (here reprinted 
together with Part II), includes a report on this question by Dr. K. C. 
Babcock, Chief of the Division of Higher Education. No estimate of the 
cost of duplication is made, but he states : "The waste due to duplication 
of faculty, equipment, and buildings is frequently overestimated. While 
it may be temporarily noticeable in weak, new commonwealths, which have 
distributed their institutions, the perm.anence of this defect in a given 
State system will depend largely upon the rapidity of the growth of popu- 
lation and the upward reach of the work undertaken. The work done at 
the present time by the three higher institutions supported by the State 
of Michigan, and the two supported by the State of Indiana, would not 
greatly gain in efficiency if it were all combined in each State in one place 
and under one management, while the economies would be confined to a 
few administrative salaries saved in the process of centralization." Never- 
theless, Dr. Babcock refers with apparent approval to an opinion favoring 
"combining in one institution the colleges of liberal arts and sciences and 
all the professional schools, including colleges of engineering and agricul- 
ture, for a given State." A list is given of institutions that have been 



THE QUESTION OF DUPLICATION 7 

other? Certain administrative and overhead expenses are indeed 
duplicated; but they are not sufficient in amount to compel a reck- 
less ignoring of strong affirmative reasons, where such exist, for 
the continuance of deeply-rooted historical developments. Enor- 
mous size does not make an institution great, neither does it insure 
economy, or efficiency, or desirable progress. 

President Yan Hise opened his address to the iSTational Associa- 
tion of State Universities, at Minneapolis in October, 1911, by 
saying: "So far as I know, there is a general consensus of opin- 
ion among educators that it is advantageous to make a single uni- 
versity for a given State. The separation of a part of higher 
education into a university, another part into an agricultural and 
mechanical college^ another into a school of mines necessarily re- 
sults in duplication.'' Everything implied in this statement, ex- 
cept the fact of "duplication,'' may be questioned, as was pointedly 
developed in the discussion that followed. One of the speakers 
(the president of a State university whose experience includes 
eight yea,rs' service as the president of an agricultural college) 



consolidated, but no item in it has tke least bearing on the question 
before us. The item of the (sadly brief) catalog characterized as '"'the 
latest and most noteworthy merger," is the union of Scio College and 
Mount Union College, Ohio. The former had 64 college students and total 
income of $6550, the latter 127 students and income of about $23,000. 
The incident is recent, but why so "noteworthy"? The two little institu- 
tions were under the direction of the same church and less than fifty 
miles apart. There are in Ohio over forty private and denominational 
colleges, whereof the majority ought to be consolidated or abolished. 
Great good would result. But such affairs have nothing to do with a 
State's policy concerning two firmly established institutions of standard 
rank. It ought not to be necessary to abolish either of such institutions 
to prevent useless duplication of expensive specialized work, or technologi- 
cal branches requiring costly equipment. Really wasteful duplication by 
two state institutions is immoral; but if real, it is provable. If proved, 
show the proof to the presidents and governing boards. They would prob- 
ably adjust the matter. If not they should be criticized until it is cor- 
rected. The important point would be to prove any waste or other injury 
in a given duplication. That would be a better way and certainly an 
easier way, than to attempt to abolish a large, flourishing college. 



8 THB QUESTION OF DUPLICATION 

differed diametrically, holding: "It would be to the disadvantage 
of the agTicnltnral interests of the country if all agricultural col- 
leges were made parts of the State universities." Eef erring to a 
particular institution, he was of the opinion that it did "more 
for the particular purpose for which it was instituted by very 
reason of its separate existence." But it might be granted that, 
abstractly, or as an original d^ign, one comprehensive university 
should be preferred to more than one institution, yet it would not 
follow tl^iat several established institutions ought always to be re- 
duced to one. 

Texas may well determine that no "School of Mines," or any 
new department, shall henceforth be established as a separate in- 
stitution; but it may also rest contented with the historical de- 
velopments which have created its State University, Agricultural 
and Mechanical College, and State College for Women. The ques- 
tion of duplication would become serious for such institutions only 
at the stage of graduate departments, and in the case of certain 
technical branches that require very costly equipment. ]^o school 
of mines, for instance, ought to be duplicated in them. Graduate 
departments in the full sense have not yet come into existence in 
Texas. The necessary means for graduate work, such as would 
justify advanced students in seeking in this State the specialisf s 
degree (the doctorate), have never yet been provided. When such 
developments are made possible for the University of Texas, there 
should be little danger of wasteful duplication in the other state 
institutions. If the scramble before each Legislature to continue 
a precarious existence is replaced by a sufficient tax apportioned 
in a fixed ratio, rational hopes may be cherished that the separate 
institutions will be administered so that the cost will not be se- 
riously increased by duplication, and that mutual stimulation will 
conduce to a steadily improving service. In the second part of 
this study (treating of internal organization and administration) 
will be indicated far more wasteful application of teaching force 



THE QUKSTTON OF DUPLICATION 9 

than could be involved in duplicated undergraduate work of two 
institutions. There, also, will be considered the internal effects 
of rivalry under precarious support. 

Finally, while duplication beyond undergraduate work is gen- 
erally to be avoided by state institutions, in regard to others it 
should be understood that even total duplication is often consistent 
with true economy and with thoroughly wholesome conditions. 
The establishment of Leland Stanford undoubtedly helped the 
University of California immeasurably^ and the University of Chi- 
cago still more definitely and effectively assisted the University 
of Illinois. The president of the University of Illinois himself 
testified last July in an address before the National Education 
Association, that the "foundation of the University of Chicago, 
by the bold and striking way in which it raised high aloft the 
standard of science, gave an impetus to the university idea which 
made the work of [all the surrounding universities] more ade- 
quate and more easy.^' It is a matter of high congratulation for 
the people of Texas that the Rice Institute of Literature, Science, 
and Art is going to "duplicate^' many of the undertakings of our 
State institutions. The Johns Hopkins University with half the 
endo"wment of the Eice Institute caused a great uplift in every im- 
portant institution of learning in the United States. Although no 
such unique opportunity is open to the Eice Institute, its untram- 
meied self-government, and the comprehensive views and lofty 
ideals and practical purposes already indicated by its manage- 
ment, constitute very valid grounds of hope that the parallel ac- 
tivities of this new institution will in due time prove to be most 
beneficial to all other enterprises for higher education in Texas. 



There is a matter that ought never to be confused with the 
question we have briefly discussed, which I shall not take up in 
this study at all. It is so special, and in some States so impor- 
tant, that it should be treated in a studv devoted to it alone. I 



10 THE QUESTION OP DUPLICATION- 

refer to cases in which some "school'' of a university, such as its 
school of medicine, and the main body of the university are situ- 
ated in different localities. It may be remarked in passing, how- 
ever, that the idea and. practice recently wrought out by the Uni- 
versity of Michigan offer to any one desirous of studjdng the or- 
ganization and conduct of university schools of medicine the most 
significant lessons to be found in this country. The existing facts 
about medical education and a discussion of the organiza- 
tion and administration of medical schools have been presented 
by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 
in two great bulletins. These reports by Abraham Flexner, Med- 
ical Education in the United States and Canada, 1910, and Med- 
ical Education in Europe, 1912, ought to be epoch making. 



III. INEXPEDIENCY OF A CBNTEAL BOAED OF 
CONTROL 

Logically, the notion of a central board of control has been dis- 
posed of by showing that duplication of undergraduate studies in 
separate institutions is not injurious and may be advantageous, 
and by pointing to a better and surer remedy for the evil of in- 
cessant rivalries before legislatures. Nevertheless, it will be ad- 
vantageous to discuss directly the subject of a central board, if 
only because logic is generally ignored by persons who are ever 
ready to approve any legislation proposed as a cure for an evident 
disorder. 

Eespectable advocates of a central board of control all see great 
evil and greater risk in such a board, but they deem it a lesser 
evil than "duplication" and "rivalry before legislatures." Such 
is the attitude of President Van Hise, whose paper upon the sub- 
ject, already referred to, comprises everything that could be found 
in less vigorous discussions favoring a central board of control. He 
considers the dangerous central board inevitable unless university 
and agricultural college are united in one university, or overlap- 
ping is kept at a minimum. Like everyone else, he has only two 
arguments. Those arguments, having been dealt with, the gloomy 
prophecies based upon them fall with their foundations. If the 
"rivaln^" argument be removed by a sufficient and definitely appor- 
tioned state tax, it is difficult to conceive how a vague objection to 
"duplication" could be deemed more weighty than the downright 
objections to a central board which he himself indicates, to say 
nothing of others that exist. 

The following objections are acknowledged by President Van 
Hise: 

"If there be a central board which is to govern several institutions at 
different localities, it will be impossible to get the best men of a State 



12 OBJECTIONS TO CEXTRAL BOARDS 

to give sufficient time to master the details in reference to them. (They 
would be unwilling to take a position involving responsibility for several 
institutions at different localities.) Further, if compensation be offered, 
the fact that the service is not free will make men of the highest type 
reluctant to take positions on such boards. To illustrate: at the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin, for many years, we had the services of Colonel 
William F. Vilas. No cash estimate of the value of this service can be 
made. The larger part of his estate will also finally go to the uni- 
versity. Nothing could have induced Colonel Vilas to accept the place of 
regent with compensation. If compensation of a board be small, it will 
be composed of inferior men; if it be large, places on the board will be 
sought by unfit men, and it will be extremely difficult to fill the positions 
without political interference." 

"A difficulty with central boards, which has appeared as a result of 
experience, is that some of the men are interested in one institution and 
others in another; and this has led to trading back and forth in grants 
to the different institutions." 

"It is possible in such a board to have the special friends and cham- 
pions of each of the institutions, and then you have the same collisions 
and collusion of interest that you have in a city council or other bodies 
of similar character." 

"Another difficulty with central boards created at one time is that a 
break is thus made in the continuity of the government of an institution. 
The recognized aims and practices which have grown up through many 
years are likely to be ignored by a new board having no knowledge of or 
experience with the several institutions which they are to govern." 

"It is not wise to separate educational and financial control. . . . 
Iowa, has attempted to meet difficulties by creating a non-paid central 
board, and outside of this board a finance committee of three, which in 
large measure administers the institutions under the general principles 
laid down by the board. Under this plan a finance committee may be 
advantageous where a central board is inevitable, but undoubtedly there 
are grave dangers in such a committee; for whenever there is a financial 
board giving full time to the administration of educational affairs there 
is a constant tendency for them to take the initiative in reference to 
policies, and to supervise and circumscribe the faculty in their eduea- 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 13 

tional work in a manner which is wholly unwarranted, and is contrary 
to the best interests of higher education." 

"An additional difficulty, as shown by experience, is that there is a 
tendency in a central board to place the normal school in the same posi- 
tion of dignity as the university." [This refers to the practice in sev- 
eral States of putting totally disparate institutions under one board. 
The limit of that mistake is reached when university, agricultural col- 
lege, normal schools, schools for blind, deaf, and feeble-minded, and 
reform schools are put under one board.] 

Historical Summary 

The States that have had an}^ experience with central boards of 
control are Florida, Georgia^ Iowa, Missisippi, Montana, Okla- 
homa, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia. Their practices, in 
my judgment, represent the worst possible devices. The opinions 

of: men dependent upon the central boards are conflicting, but the 
short histories reveal only warning examples. The vagaries of 
rash legislation in the respective States are summarized as follows: 

Florida. — Bad conditions called for some remedy, and doubtless some of 
the institutions ought to have been abolished. All existing institutions 
were abolished, and a state university including normal school for men, 
a State College for Women, an A. and M. College for Negroes, a Normal 
Colored School, and an Institution for Blind, Deaf, and Dumb were 
established. The permanent arrangement for the government of these 
institutions is perhaps the worst that could be devised. One board of 
control was put over them all, of five members, none to be appointed 
from any county in which any of the institutions is located; but this 
board was made "'at all times imder and subject to the control and 
supervision of the State Board of Education." The latter consists of 
Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Although a sovereign State 
has committed this act, the mere statement of its provisions sufficiently 
exposes its errors. Satisfaction with the enlargement of the university 
resulting from the abolishment of several weak and low-grade colleges 
may blind some eyes to impending evils; but the strife, and the dead- 
lock over the election of the president of the university, already experi- 



14 HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

encedj are but foretastes of worse evils yet to come. For details the 
reader is referred to President Pritchett's fourth annual report to the 
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 

Georgia. — ^All institutions (white and negro) including normal schools 
are branches of the university, and under a board consisting of the trus- 
tees of the University of Greiorgia, the presidents of each institution con- 
cerned (except the university), the Governor, and George Foster Pea- 
body. There is no need of the Chancellor's testiiaony that "the method 
of government involves many difficulties." 

lotua. — In 1909 a law was enacted which put the University of Iowa, 
A. and M. College, and State Teachers' College under a board composed 
of nine members, to be appointed by the governor. It is provided that 
not more than one alumnus of any institution concerned shall be on the 
board. The board appoints a finance committee of three, not members 
of the board, nor more than two from one political party, at a salary of 
$3500 a year and expenses. President Van Hise's just criticism of the 
last mentioned feature has been quoted. It may be noted (without prej- 
udice) that, during the first year of the board's authority, the president 
of the university, the president of the agricultural college, and the dean 
of the law school resigned. 

Mississippi. — In 1910 four institutions were put under one board of 
eight appointed by the Governor. 

Montana. — In 1909 all educational institutions, including orphans' 
home, school for deaf and blind, and a reform school, were put under a 
board of education of eleven members, eight appointed, three ex-officio. 
A subordinate local board of three members is provided at each institu- 
tion, one of whom is the president of the institution. The local board 
can not expend for a single purpose an amount exceeding $250. But 
there is a further complication: the ex-officio members of the board of 
control (Governor, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion) constitute a separate and supreme board in all financial matters. 
President Van Hise judges that this Montana way shows "a larger num- 
ber of objectionable features than any other system." Recalling my own 
assignment of Florida to that bad eminence, I stand corrected. They are 
on a parity except that Montana adds the petty local boards, and also 
adds a penal school and orphans' home to the school for blind and deaf 
and the other institutions. 

Oklahoma. — In 1911 the Legislature created a State Board of Education 
consisting of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and six other 



PIISTORIC'AL SUMMARY 15 

members serving without salary appointed by the Governor. The ex- 
ofl&cio member has his salary of $2500. Absurd as it may seem, this 
board is required to exercise exclusive supervision and control over the 
whole common school system (including duties of a State Text-Book 
Board, and a board of examiners for issuing teachers' certificates), and 
over eighteen different institutions, viz., state university, two prepara- 
tory schools, school of mines^ college for girls, six normal schools, agri- 
cultural and normal university for negroes, school for blind, school for 
deaf, school f®r feeble-minded, school for orphans, reform school, and an 
orphanage and school for defectives for negroes. The agricultural col- 
leges were not put under this board because the Constitution placed them 
under the State Board of Agriculture. The short but stormy history of 
this application of the central-board-of-control idea may be read in Presi- 
dent Pritchett's sixth annual report. The heads of six of the institu- 
tions, including the university, and more than half of the members of 
their faculties were summarily removed. Some removals were made 
against the advice of both the removed and the new presidents. The new 
appointees were chosen by the Board, without nomination by responsible 
administrative officers, from "applications" made directly to the board. 
It would be irrelevant to consider the merits or demerits of individuals 
involved. If it were granted that all persons dismissed were either in- 
jurious or inefficient, it is certainly incredible that the majority of the 
new appointments, derived as stated, could have been made wisely. Good 
intentions on the part of members of the board does not ameliorate the 
situation. The method of procedure was fatally wrong. The condition 
of the patient may have been very bad, but the intended remedy must 
prove worse than the disease. President Pritchett says of the situation: 
"No real university can exist under such conditions." President Van 
Hise says, that, for the present, "it would be extraordinary if any man 
of ability who has a fair place in another State should accept a position 
in any of the educational institutions in the State of Oklahoma." 

Oregon. — A board of four, appointed by the Governor, known as the 
Board of Higher Curricula, passes on all the courses offered at the uni- 
versity and at the agricultural college. It is in the power of this board 
to determine absolutely what work shall be given at each institution. 

South Dakota. — An appointed board of five mebers, salaries of $1000 
a year, govern the University, A. and M. College, School of Mines, and 
three normal schools. A number of difficulties have been experienced. 

West Virginia. — A board of regents, consisting of four appointed mem- 



16 HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

bors with salaries of $1000 and the State Superintendent, was created 
in 1909 to govern the university, agricultural college, two preparatory 
schools, six normal schools, and two institutes fof negroes. But the same 
act of the legislature created a board of control of three, appointed, 
salaries $5000, to have full control of charitable and penal institutions, 
and also "control of the financial and business affairs" of the educational 
institutions. This control goes to the extent of approving salaries of the 
teaching force, or naming a total amount to be paid for instruction. The 
board of regents is required to meet with the board of control when the 
latter so desires. Every feature of this law violates fundamental 
principles. 

Kansas. — The Legislature of Kansas recently passed an act abolishing 
the boards of regents of the university, agricultural college, and normal 
schools, and creating one board of control of three members. The Gov- 
ernor vetoed the act. Chancellor Strong of the University of Kansas, 
writing in October, 1911, says: "Agitation over duplication led to the 
introduction into the last legislature of several bills. Some contained 
grotesque features. The bill [that was passed] provided for a board of 
^control of three persons, to receive $2500 per year each, the board to 
'elect, outside of its own number, an educational expert to act as its sec- 
retary, at the same salary. Each member was to give his entire time to 
the work of the board. . . . There were then serving upon the dif- 
ferent boards of regents some of the ablest men in the State, whose serv- 
ices could hardly have been secured at any price if one had attempted to 
hire them. The positions contemplated by the new bill were offered to 
several of these men and refused. The Governor was told that, while 
they would gladly serve the State for nothing on an honorary board, they 
could not under any circumstances accept a position like the one indi- 
cated. . . . The Governor took counsel by telegraph with many uni- 
versity administrators, who, almost without exception, advised against 
the bill. The grounds of objection were, in the main, first, that the 
provision for , an educational expert as secretary would almost certainly 
interfere with the internal administration of the institutions, and pro- 
duce friction and inefficiency; secondly, that a salaried board, especially 
at the salaries indicated, would bring mediocre men . . . ; thirdly, 
that the method proposed would almost certainly invade the real person- 
ality of each institution, take away its fundamental and individual char- 
acteristics, and so deprive it of its real independence. ... As it 
was expressed by one college administrator, the University of Kansas 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 17 

needs to keep its own soul as much as Harvard does. . . . The bill 
was vetoed." Vice-President Carruth summarized the history for the 
National Association of State Universities as follows: "We were threat- 
ened last winter with what is known as the Keene bill. A board of 
control of three members at salaries of $2500, with an 'educational ex- 
pert' as secretary at the same salary, was to manage our state insti- 
tutions of higher education — to be placed over the heads of these insti- 
tions, each of whom commands a salary of $6000. You can anticipate 
what the results would have been. But I want to say that the State of 
Kansas owes a debt to the members of this Association. Governor Stubbs 
sought advice from many of you; and the Grovernor deserves to be highly 
commended for seeking competent counsel and then following it. Your 
advice, together with the earnest protest of the chancellor of our State 
University, resulted in the vetoing of the bill and the saving of our State 
and university, for the present at least, from the threatened calamity."* 

The Governor, before vetoing the bill, asked the board of regents of 
each institution whether, if he vetoed the Keene bill, they would volun- 
tarily organize the three boards into a commission, to consult on the 
general welfare and make recommendations to each separate board as 
might seem wise, authority still to lie in the separate boards. There is, 
therefore, in Kansas an extra-legal commission, of which the Governor 
is chairman, made up of all the members of three boards of regents. Its 
counsels have resulted in a uniform system of accounting and business 
management. Committees are working on various internal problems. 

President Van Hise says: "The most serious danger of a commission 
such as that of Kansas, composed of an equal number of representatives 
from each board, is that several weaker institutions may unite against 
a stronger one and so prevent its growth. . . . Each having equal 
representation upon the commission, the representatives of the institu- 
tions other than the university may unite and unduly limit the scope of 
the university; not only so, but they may recommend more than propor- 
tional support for the weaker institutions, and aim to make them the 
equals of the university." This is certainly wise foresight, and many 
other evil eontingencies are equally foreseeable. It is, therefore, sur- 
prising that the same writer should conclude his remarks by saying: 
"If it works out that the recommendations of the commission are rea- 
sonably respected by the different boards, the natural step would be to 



'See Appendix— /S'ome Recent Events. 



18 HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

legalize the commission and give its actions the sanction of law." I 
understand him to use "natural" in a commendatory sense; but, in my 
judgment, the statement that such a step is the natural course, is to 
assert that only folly is to be expected of state legislatures. Voluntary 
consultation and co-operation is always desirable. It is undoubtedly the 
proper course, especially upon certain occasions. But why, — in the name 
of sober intelligence, — if voluntary consultation works well, should it be 
"natural" to replace it by compulsory subjection to a joint commission, 
or any other sort of central control? 

Minnesota. — There is only one comprehensive state institution of 
higher education in Minnesota, and the question of a central board of 
control could not arise. Yet that State has had an experience which is 
both interesting and encouraging, in its bearing on the question of a 
dual control of any one institution. In 1901 a board of control was put 
over the regents of the university in all financial transactions. The 
regents resisted for two years, but their attempt to relieve the univer- 
sity failing in 1903, they became subject to the board of control. "After 
two years' trial, conditions were such as to make further continuation 
of the arrangement wholly intolerable." In 1905 the legislature, by a 
nearly unanimous vote, gave the long sought relief. One bad consequence 
of the original mistake of 1901 remains. In the placing of insurance, 
purchase of fuel, and erection of buildings the board of regents still 
remains subject to another state board. The legal theory that the board 
of regents is incompetent or untrustworthy for buying insurance and 
fuel, is irritating; but those matters are so petty that they could not 
cause directly any serious misgovernment. New buildings, on the con- 
trary, are important affairs, and are so intimately connected with the 
educational work for which the institution is conducted that a separate 
government of that matter must have many injurious consequences. 

The preceding paragraphs have briefly summarized all experi- 
ence with central boards of control. President Van Hise admits 
that the experience has not been encouraging. I understand that 
his own preference, where consolidation in one institution is not 
practicable, is for co-operation through "a commission composed 
of representatives of each of the institutional boards." But his 
conclusion is that, where consolidation is not practicable, it is so 
"necessary to have sharp delimitation of scopes (to avoid over- 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY 19 

lapping), and co-operation in financial requests to the legisla- 
ture/^ that "if co-operation be not successful, central boards are 
inevitable." 

We are left to marvel why so bad an end is inevitable, even if 
living^ thriving institutions refuse to give up their separate exist- 
ence and continue to duplicate or parallel some of the teaching 
that is done in a university. Is it to be supposed that everywhere 
men will see those evils of a central board of control which Presi- 
dent Van Hise himself mentions, not to mention many others, 
only to forget them? Will "duplication*' or "overlapping^' seem 
such a horrible idea to everyone, or a little extra expense appear 
so fearsome, that, to escape them, the known evils of a central 
board will be embraced? 

Of course, a temporary commission might be needed in some 
situations, such as that of the State of Virginia, in order to pre- 
pare legislation for defining the general nature and scope of several 
ill-adjusted institutions. Virginia has more (four), and prob- 
ably less advantageously correlated, state-supported colleges grant- 
ing academic and professional degrees than any other State. A 
commission for such a purpose is one thing, and a central board 
permanently controlling subordinated boards is another and very 
different affair. 

If duplication were truly an essentially bad and wasteful thing, 
the only wise course would be to abolish our A. and M. College 
and College for Girls and confine the State's higher educational 
work in one institution. Happily, no one need think so ill of 
"duplication" or even of "overlapping." In no event, it seems to 
me, would it be wise either to replace our properly independent 
boards of regents by a central board, or to subordinate them to a 
superior board of control. There is no need to add to the reasons 
already stated, to show the inexpediency of a central board, either 
with or without inferior boards; but concerning the latter I may 
add one important consideration, not yet mentioned, to wit: de- 



20 THE STANDARD SYSTEM 

sirable men would, in general, refuse to serve on the subordinate 
boards. 

The Standard System. 

The independence of their governing boards characterizes the 
standard form of government for state universities, from which 
only discredited innovations have deviated; but there is great di- 
versity in the number of members and term of office, — the latter 
varying from two years to life-tenure. The prevailing method 
of appointment is by the governor of the State, impaired in some 
cases by ex officio accessions. Appointment by popular election, 
a;S in Michigan and Illinois is the chief variation, and peculiar 
exceptions exist, such as (in Iowa) the election by the legislature 
of a trustee for each congressional district, and (in Indiana) elec- 
tion by the State Board of Education. The popular election of 
trustees has worked well only when political conventions have con- 
ceded the selection of university regents to disinterested friends 
of the institution and made the nominations regardless of politics. 
For instance, Mr. Peter White, a Democrat, was nominated for 
regent of the University of Michigan by a Eepublican conven- 
tion. Where nominations for popular election must be secured 
through" primary elections, the laws governing such primaries 
generally confine to one party all candidates on one ticket; and it 
is practically impossible for the office to seek the man, the party 
voters mereh^ choosing between self-constituted office seekers. Men 
who would accept the great responsibility from a governor, or 
from a state convention under favorable circumstances, would 
hardly seek nomination in a primary election. Ex- officio mem- 
bership is deemed by all thoughtful observers, without exception 
as far as I have found, "the worst of all'' methods of appointment. 

The legislatures of a few States have adopted various devices to' 
direct or restrict the executive authority in the appointment of 
gos^erning boards. The contrivances have not operated beneficially. 
M^any reasons have been suggested in this chapter for judging that 



THE STANDARD SYSTEM 21 

any such policy would be a mistake. It is wiser to trust to the 
honesty of governors, and the force of public opinion. 

The private corporation of an endowed college or university 
may properly be required by its charter to have in its body repre- 
sentatives of certain close interests (such as the alumni, the lo- 
cality, etc.) ; but if representation of any special interest in the 
governing board of a state university were required by law, a 
wanton temptation would be extended to a horde of other interests 
to demand "recognition.'" If a representative farmer were re- 
quired, representation might soon be demanded by labor unions, 
mothers' congresses, and federations of various sorts. All inhabi- 
tants of the State have indeed an interest in education, but in the 
government of a university the interests of no classes ought to be 
distinguished by law. It is vastly better to leave the matter to 
the good sense and honesty of the governor. 

A term of office for the regents three or four times the length 
of the governor's term, is the intelligent precaution to be taken 
by the legislature against political abuses. Bi- or tri-partisan, of 
or not of the county of the institution, of or not of the alumni 
(to mention half a dozen extant specimens), or any such require- 
ment, is an abuse of power by the legislature likely to do harm. 
In the best practice the law merely directs the governor to ap- 
point qualified voters (sometimes adding that he shall select the 
members of the board from "different portions of the State"), 
and requires that the appointments be confirmed by the senate. 

We have reason to believe that the government of a state uni- 
versity by an independent board of regents is a form of govern- 
ment well adapted to the conditions that developed in the United 
States of America. The following statem^ent by Chancellor Strong 
of the University of Kansas emphasizes an historical argument : 

"The American college, of which the state university, in spite of the 
difiFerentiation of its functions into technical and professional schools, is 
an example, is two hundred and seventy-five years old. Allowing for a 
few modifications and exceptions, the method of government that has 



22 THE STANDARD SYSTEM 

grown up through this long experience is the one now in use. It is, 
therefore, the product of the best experience of the New World in UDiver- 
sity administration. ... It would seem, therefore, that, to justify 
a change in method of government in any particular university, it ought 
to appear that the results in the institution are abnormal and in quality 
and quantity quite below those of colleges and universities in general. 
If there is this condition, evidently something is wrong, and it is to be 
found in one of two things: either in the method of government itself, 
or in the application of the method of government by the university in 
question. 

"If the method of government is faulty, its defects ought to appear in 
the one hundred and fifty or more universities and colleges in North 
America of sufficient standing and endowment to be listed in the great 
report of the Carnegie Foundation in 1908. A thorough examination into 
the facts would easily show whether this is the case. From all that can 
be determined, the universities and colleges of North America show no 
such defects. If the defect lies in the application by any given university 
of this method of government, it ought to appear that the institution in 
its growth and development, in the quality of its work, in its standing 
among standard institutions in North America, and in other essential 
respects does not conform to the average standard of American institu- 
tions. This also could easily be determined by a careful examination 
into the facts. 

"Of late there have been a few deviations from the usual method of 
university government, because of conditions arising in States where the 
agricultural college and the university are separate. . . . The chances 
are against their success." 

The deviations alluded to by Chancellor Strong have been de- 
scribed and briefly discussed in this chapter. The specific nature 
of and genuine remedies for the various troubles that are now man- 
ifest in many American universities are to be discussed in Part II 
of this study — dealing with internal organization and administra- 
tion. Only such as arise from the structural foundation fixed by 
the legislature are directly considered in Part I. None of them, it 
may be believed, spring from the standard method of government. 
Commissioner Draper's general diagnosis (see page 3) is doubt- 
less correct. 



XEEDKD ADJUSTMENT OF TEXAS SYSTEM 23 

President Van Hise summarizes the question thus: "The ad- 
vantage of each large educational institution having a separate 
board is obvious. The experience of hundreds of years in this 
country both with endowed and tax-supported institutions shows 
that a non-paid board of somewhere between seven and twenty in 
number is the best method of governing an educational institution. 
The position of trustee or regent is always one of high honor, and 
the best men in the state in all lines of endeavor are willing to 
serve. The unbought service of men of the highest character and 
greatest ability in the state as trustees and regents has been one of 
the important factors in the wise and rapid development of higher 
education in this country. Even when in highly remunerative 
professional work, they are willing to take sufficient time to do 
their part in the government of a university. If, however, the 
task assigned to an}'- one board is as complex as it is likely to be 
where it must deal with two or more institutions at different lo- 
calities, it is not practicable for a first class man in active life to 
give the necessary time to this work.'' 

Only Needed Adjnstm.ent for the Texas System. 

The only needed adjustment of the established organization of 
the independent governing boards of the three Texas institutions 
concerns the present two-years term of office of regent and sim- 
ultaneous expiration of the terms of all the members of each board. 
A constitutional amendment permitting thorough correction of 
those defects has been already submitted to the people and will 
be voted on in the approaching general election. If the pending 
amendment to the Constitution is adopted, and if the legislature 
follows it by fixing the terms of office at six years, one-third of 
the members of each board to be appinted every two years, Texas 
may well rest satisfied with its present system of governing boards 
for its state institutions of higher education. 



IV. STATE NOEMAL SCHOOLS 

The iniportance of the enormous work of preparing, as well as 
may be, teachers for the common schools could hardl}^ be over- 
estimated; hut there is especial need at the present time to con- 
sider the question calmh^ and with discriminating knowledge. 
State normal schools have a peculiar purpose, which is carried out 
best under a distinct organization. In government they should 
not be combined with universities and advanced schools of tech- 
nology. Like all other institutions, they should never be gov- 
erned by ex-officio boards; but several state normal schools may, 
with some practical advantages, be put under one board of con- 
trol. Only those who do not understand educational work in its 
di.fferent spheres will confuse this case with that of universities 
and agricultural colleges. In the case of normal schools it is for 
the very reason that "duplication^' is thoroughgoing, that one 
board of control for all of them may be advantageous. A wise 
board will never impose or admire exact uniformity; but will en- 
courage spontaneous variations suitable to local conditions or to 
different faculties. Yet the main purpose of the normal schools 
is so special and so identical for all, and the policy of the State 
to deal with them on a parity is so fixed, that the superior chances 
of improvement through free variation under separate boards, may 
properly be sacrificed to the simplicity and harmony attainable 
through one governing board. 

Until recently the state normal schools of Texas were governed 
by an ex-officio board of three members. In 1904 the present 
writer, in his biennial report as State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, advised the Legislature : "It is unwise to burden the 
Governor, Comptroller, and Secretary of State with the detailed 
executive control of the state normal schools. The public inter- 
ests would be subserved by the enactment of a law directing the 
Governor to appoint a normal school board of five members to 



NOinrAL SCHOOL REGENTS 25 

manage and control the state normal schools, whose terms of office 
onght to be the maximnni allowed by the Constitution." Six 
years passed before that progressive step was taken by the First 
Called Session of the Thirty-second Legislature. The present 
''State Normal School Board of Regents," however, consists of 
four appointed members and the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction. It would, of course, have been wiser to have pro- 
vided that all of the regents should be appointed; but the Texas 
boards are now freer from ex-officio members (the only other in- 
stance being the Commissioner of Agriculture on the Board of 
Directors of the A. and M. College) than is the case in many other 
States. In such matters it is usually advisable to "let well enough 
alone.^ The pending amendment to the Constitution, already men- 
tioned, covers all the "educational, eleemosynary, and penal in- 
stitutions of the State." If that amendment is adopted, and the 
Legislature puts it into effect by lengthening the term of office 
of the regents or trustees of all the State institutions to six years, 
one-third of the members of each board to be appointed every two 
years, there will remain no serious defect in the organization of 
any of the governing boards. 

It has been the simultaneous expiration of the terms of all 
members of the boards which in theory have governed the schools 
for defectives and penal institutions, that has in fact, in the past, 
precipitated those institutions into the arena of political office- 
seeking, and put upon the governors of the State the burden of 
their patronage. Such complications would be obviated by the 
appointment every two years of only one-third of the members of 
the boards in question. Those boards would forthwith acquire the 
dignity and independent responsibility of the regents of the higher 
educational institutions, and succeeding governors of the State 
would be relieved of a burden hitherto imposed upon them by an 
evil custom. 



26 CORRELATION WITH COLLEGES 

Correlation With Colleges 

It is not within the scope of this study to deal with the in- 
ternal organization or work of normal schools; hut there is one 
question concerning their correlation with universities, which needs 
to be made clear. The question is of great importance every- 
where, and, from it, at the present juncture in Texas, might arise 
a crisis involving the whole future of the State's educational en- 
terprises. A strong movement is afoot among us for the uplift- 
ing and expansion of educational institutions of every sort. It 
behooves all upon whom responsibility rests, or who assume re- 
sponsibility for the definite measures that must finally express the 
vision and enthusiasm of the movement, to attain clear views of 
both means and ends. 

A tendency has appeared in several states (e. g., Illinois, Kan- 
fcias, Colorado) to turn their normal schools into colleges grant- 
ing degrees. Simultaneously many universities, including nearly 
all flourishing state universities, have established departments or 
schools of education. The University of Texas organized its "De- 
partment of Education"* in 1907, and it has been standardized by 
its present admission requirement of two years {ten courses) in 
the College of Arts. 

If the state normal schools were to be transformed into col- 
leges, there would ensue a rej)eated duplication between each of 
the normal colleges and the university which would truly be ex- 
travagant if the work were honestly performed, or be a dishonest 
travesty if the transformation were only ^on paper.' There is 
almost unanimity of expert opinion that any attempt to transform 
state normal schools into colleges is "most unfortunate.'' In discus- 
sions of the question by the ^N'ational Association I find only one 
dissenting voice, and that dissent arose, apparently, through the 
confusion of two questions, the second being whether high school 



*The nomenclature adopted by the National Association of State Uni- 
versities would employ the term School of Education. 



CORRELATION^ WITH COLLEGES 27 

teachers ought always to be college graduates. It came, more- 
over, from one of the state imiversities of Ohio, a state in which 
conditions are confusing for any comparison with other states. 
Ohio maintains three state universities, Ohio University, Miami 
University, and the Ohio State University. About ten A^ears ago 
it was deemed expedient to largely specialize two of those insti- 
tutions by establishing a high class ''nonnal college" at Ohio 
University and another at Miami University, in addition to sev- 
eral ordinary state normal schools. Evidently these normal col- 
leges in Ohio are analogous rather to the School of Education of 
the usual state university than to the usual type of state normal 
schools. 

The third year of college teaching demands for its various 
departments a large staff of men of high rank. There begins 
the work of the college that advances to the expensive stage. The 
accordant correlation of the normal school and the university 
seems clear. Under favorable circumstances (primarily dependent 
upon fully adequate appropriations) the state normal schools 
might be advantageously expanded so as to cover the first two 
years of the college. If that expansion is established, the courses 
in professional training should be made optional in the normal 
schools, so that students might transfer from the state normals to 
the university, and obtain a degree in the latter in two more years. 
The number of students in the normals would be increased, and 
the faculties of those schools would need to be greatly strength- 
ened. The work of the first two college years might thus be suit- 
ably performed by the State at several points. The expense would 
probably be less than if all such instruction were concentrated in 
the university, — certainly less to the students concerned, if not 
to the State. There may be, also, some freslimen and sophomore 
students who might, for other than economic reasons, properly 
prefer to get the first two years of the college course in the smaller 
schools, than in the university. 

As far as I have been able to learn, only one State has expressed 



28 CORRELATION WITH COLLEGES 

this principle in a law. Wisconsin's legislatnre last year enacted 
the following law : "The board of normal school regents may ex- 
tend the course of instruction in any normal school so that any 
course, the admission to which is based upon graduation from an 
accredited high school or its equivalent, may include the substan- 
tial equivalent of the instruction given in the first two years of 
a college course. Such course of instruction shall not be extended 
further than the substantial equivalent of the instruction given in 
the first two years of such college course without the consent of 
the legislature.'' That act of the legislature was accompanied 
by a, large increase of appropriations for the normal schools, in 
order that they might have the necessary means to dO' effectively 
the first two years of college work. The regents of the Wisconsin 
normal schools have announced that "professional studies" will no 
longer be required of all students, and that they will hereafter 
conduct two full years of college work, as well as the professional 
curriculum. 

It should ever be borne in mind that any provision for, or per- 
mission of such expansion of the state normal schools, ought to 
be coupled with an absolute delimitation at the same point. If 
the question ever arises in Texas, the permissive act of the Wis- 
consin legislature is a good model. Of course:, the question ought 
never to arise until the normal schools can require high school 
graduation for admission to the new two-years curriculum, and 
until their financial basis enables them to get proper faculties for 
such work. At present, the Texas state normal school merely 
qualifies its graduates for entrance to the university with a credit 
of one course of freshman work. Their teachers are paid no more 
than the better sort of high school teachers. 

Both the normal schools and the universities are confronted 
today by an acute need for energetic and wise endeavors on their 
part to provide a greatly improved preparation of teachers for all 
stages of the public schools. For the secondary or high school 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 29 

stage the work must for a long time be shared by normal school 
and university. The ])est high schools are already demanding a 
full college course as a minimum of preparation in their teachers. 
Books on the subject like Professor Luckey's and reports of com- 
mittees of the National Education Association indicate but a 
small part of a public demand that is growing threatening. On 
the other hand, the weaker schools must not be neglected. Also, 
there is a critical need for teachers especially prepared for the high 
schools and semi-high schools of the villages and rural districts. 
That need ought to have been felt and seen by normal school 
authorities sooner and more clearly than by anyone else; but — 
speaking of the entire country — they still seem even deaf to a 
veritable outcry from all other quarters. Petty courses in "agri- 
culture" have been offered, but a far better response than that is 
required. Entirely reformed programs of school studies, vitally 
organized for their purpose, are demanded for our vast expanses 
of rural life. Such programs should be provided by thinkers of 
large ability and ripe experience, and the normal schools should 
then prepare legions of teachers to make the new order of rural 
schools a beneficent reality. The existing conditions in every field 
call for earnest and unselfish efforts to establish an effective corre- 
lation that will make the best use of all resources. 

To meet the needs and the demands successfully, more than 
internal arrangements for improved work in the normal schools 
and universities will be necessary. The enterprise is so enormous 
and so complex that the local authorities in charge of public 
school systems, and States through their legislatures must co- 
operate with the institutions preparing the teachers. On the part 
of the local school systems, organization and administration must 
be reformed upon sound principles, to the end that the best 
available teachers shall be elected and retained. There are (and 
there will be an increasing number of them) men and women 
who will not scramble for such positions, but who could fill them 
capably. Local governing boards must act within their proper 



30 PREPAKATION" OF TEACHERS 

sphere. The necessar}^ authority must be conferred upon super- 
intendents and the corresponding responsibility be imposed. If 
the superintendent does not meet his responsibility faithfully and 
successfully, he should be removed, but the board should never 
assume his function of administration. On the part of the state 
legislatures, the essential need is for laws providing adequate sup- 
port without special appropriations, — except for some large, oc- 
casional need, such as grounds or buildings. Beyond this, the 
Wisconsin law, quoted above, represents the only other legislative 
co-operation that is needed when it is also timely. 

This nation has staked almost its existence on public educa- 
tion. The following words of Commissioner Draper are not ex- 
aggerated: "The great aim of the public school system is to hold 
us together, to secure the safety of a wide-open suffrage, and to 
assure the progress of the whole population. The public school 
system is our protection. In the light of the world^s experience 
our experiment in government is a vast undertaking. History 
does not record a similar experiment which has been permanently 
successful. The public school system is the one institution which 
is more completely representative of the American plan, spirit, 
and purpose than any other. It can continue to be the instrument 
of our security and the star of our hope only so long as it holds 
the interest and confidence of all the people by assuring the rights 
of every one to the best teaching.^^ As for the institutions of 
higher education, they are as indispensable for the preparation of 
teachers, as for many other fundamentally necessary sernces. 

This vast question can not be treated here in any detail. The 
suggestions that are offered must be concluded by quoting a pas- 
sage from an address by P'resident W. L. Bryan of Indiana Uni- 
versity on the preparation of teachers for the high schools: 

"The high school has been called the people's college. In the Ameri- 
can high school nearly the whole range of learning and many of the 
arts and handicrafts are represented. Here society sets for the young 
people tasks of many sorts which should lead them toward society at 



TEACHEFuS OF HIGH SCHOOLS 31 

its best. The tasks, the standards, the spirit in every department of 
the high school should be such as shall stand approved in the judgment 
of those men who represent the several departments of art and of learning 
at their best. Second-best standards and spirit in a school are a calam- 
ity. They mistrain. They build up v^ithin the mind of the youth, bar- 
riers of misinformation, and of incorrect habits. A generation of high 
school teachers, educated in second-rate schools and seldom in touch with 
productive scholars, means a high school insulated from the upper cur- 
rents of civilized life. It is not enough that high school teachers should 
be taught respectably upon a collegiate level. They require the quick- 
ening effect of daily life with men who are themselves scholars, who know 
the inner meaning and spirit of learning as it can be known only by 
those who are productive men. 

"Whatever the other schools may do in this matter, it is obvious that 
part of the work must rest with the universities. This proposition 
scarcely requires discussion. It would be the last degree of absurdity 
to establish universities, each with its group of masters, and then by 
some legerdemain of legislation to provide that these masters shall not 
through their students become the teachers of the whole people. 

"The universities must provide adequately, — as they have seldom done 
in the past, — for the professional training of high school teachers. 
There are university men who fail to realize this necessity, — to whom it 
seems that a university training in the subject to be taught is sufficient, 
and that so-called professional training is for the most part a deceptive 
hocus-pocus. This view is supported by the fact that much of the peda- 
gogy disseminated is hocus-pocus, having the appearance but not the 
reality of sound learning, or in other cases an array of generalities and 
truisms barren of practical utility. 

''If, however, a university man of practical intelligence will spend 
some time in visiting high schools, he will presently be led to see that 
a knowledge of his subject is by no means a sufficient preparation for 
teaching it satisfactorily in a high school. He can not avoid seeing in 
some cases that the work is very largely a failure, that the students 
are baffled, out-of-heart, — ready at the first opportunity to leave school 
altogether. The more one is obliged to face this difficulty, the greater 
it appears and the harder its solution seems to be. The university pro- 
fessor who has given no attention to secondary education is not an 
adequate adviser. How a high school boy should be led toward and into 
his field of learning is a problem which he can not answer ex tempore. 
The professor of education, with whatever equipment of learning in the 



32 SCHOOLS FOR DEFECTIVES 

principles of education, but who is unacquainted with the substance and 
spirit of the subject to be taught, is likewise an inadequate adviser. 
He knows very vaguely the end and how can he know the way? In 
point of fact the teaching of a high school subject presents a problem 
which must be solved by men who are masters of that subject and who 
then devote themselves to finding out how to deal with it in a high 
school. I venture to say here that the study of such a problem may be 
original and productive work as truly as any other research, and may be 
a piece of first-rate practical statesmanship. If one can make sound 
learning of any kind do its proper work with a larger percentage of 
boys, he is conserving the most valuable assets of society." 

State Schools for Defectives 

There is a fundamental difference between higher educational 
institutions, and schools for defectives, or charitable and penal in- 
stitutions. The latter are mentioned in this discussion only to 
distinguish them from the former. The institutions of higher 
education are the best investment of society for the conservation 
and utilization of its m^ost valuable product. Nothing is of greater 
importance to society than the right development of the potential 
powers of the best and ablest of its young men and women. The 
expenditure for guarding defectives is, aside from its charity, a 
protective measure for avoiding worse loss and damage. Compe- 
tent opinion is unanimous, that "the government of the two classes 
of institutions is absolutely antithetical.^' The government of sev- 
eral charitable or several penal institutions by one board of con- 
trol, has proved successful in several States. Of course, institu- 
tions thus segregated for governmental control should never be of 
disparate kinds. For instance all state asylums for the insane 
might be properly governed by one board, or all penitentiaries by 
another; but a school for the blind should never be so combined 
with orphan asylums, or either with a reformatory school. 



Y. YOLUNTAEY CO-OPERATION 

Yoluntar}^ consultation between the administrative heads of a 
State's institutions of higher education should be frequent, and so 
thorough that each is alwa3^s apprised of the work and plans of 
all. On occasions, a plain necessity for volantary agreement be- 
tween the governing boards arises. The present juncture of pub- 
lie affairs in Texas marks a signal occasion, in which there is ex- 
traordinary and paramoimt need for deliberate and magnanimous 
co-operation. The situation demands high intelligence, correct 
knowledge, energetic courage, and unselfish harmony. It is a 
fateful crisis for the educational development of Texas. A con- 
stitutional amendment, which the legislature might follow by 
either wise or unwise reorganization of all governing boards, will 
probably be adopted at an approaching election. Democratic plat- 
form demands call for various important measures — among them 
a just and equitable division of endowment funds between the 
university and agricultural college. A well sustained movement 
will endeavor to secure a state tax adequate to the regular sup- 
port of the institutions and definitely apportioned by the law 
establishing it. These and other matters will be precipitated into 
a confused wrangle before a legislature distracted by a multitude 
of other affairs, unless the governing boards unite in advocating 
a clear and convincing proposal for each important measure. 

Preceding chapters have presented the fundamental principles 
respecting the constitution of governing boards, illustrated by a 
summary of pertinent experience. 

If the platform demand for "the complete divorcement of the 
University and Agricultural and Mechanical College," and for ^^a 
just and equitable division'' of their joint endowment, is to re- 
ceive legislative attention, disastrous consequences might follow a 
report by the governing boards of their inability to a^jee upon a 



34 VOLUN"TARY CO-OPERATION 

division. Surely they have more knowledge of both historical and 
present conditions, and more time for discussion and deliberation 
than the legislature. Opinions may differ as to what would be 
^'a just and equitable division/^ but, in a situation where some 
decision is required, a joint session of the two boards ought to be 
the best arbiter between conflicting views or desires. If the two 
institutions were one state university, — as is the case in Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, California, — the endow- 
ment by the State of Texas and the endowment received from the 
United States would be administered as one fund. In order to 
divide endowment resources for completely separated administra- 
tions, it is simply necessary to agree upon a ratio of partition- 
ment. To do that would not be as difficult as it may seem to 
some jealous hearts who have not yet faced the question intellectu- 
ally. The productive endowment yielded for the year 1910-11, 
from investments in bonds and from leases of land received from 
the State $165,419, and from the U. S. Government $63,750, mak- 
ing a total of $229,169. For the same year the A. & M. College 
received thereof $71,984, which is $4,406 less than one-third, and 
$14,692 more than one-fourth. So far as current income from 
endowment is concerned, it might be easy to agree to one-third 
for the agricultural college. The partitionment of land, much of 
it never yet productive of revenue, is a more difficult question; but 
the governing boards ougM to reach an amicable agreement by 
mutual concessions. They are the most competent agency for the 
proper accomplishment of that task of statesmanship, if they will 
rise to the occasion. 

The Necessary Tax 

A measure of vital importance ought to be framed to secure a 
state tax for the regular support of the three state institutions of 
higher education and the four state normal schools. Some of the 
main benefits of such a measure would be lost if the law establish- 
ing the tax did not apportion the proceeds in three fixed parts to 
the three higher institutions, and a distinct part for the support of 



NECESSARY TAX 35 

the four state normal schools. The latter ought to be adminis- 
tered as one fund by the State Normal School Board of Eegents, 
according to the varying needs of the respective normal schools. 

The problem thus presented can not be properly solved unless 
the four governing boards concerned accept some well deliberated 
plan, formulated in a carefully prepared bill, and unite in har- 
monious support of that bill. Or, if it be decided that an amend- 
ment to the Constitution is necessary, a corresponding joint reso- 
lution to submit the constitutional amendment should be prepared 
and supported. 

The total amount that must be supplied from the revenues of 
the State in order that Texas may take a place among the States 
that have undertaken to secure efficient services from their insti- 
tutions of higher education, has been reliably ascertained from a 
study of the financial basis of such institutions in all of those 
States.* It is also shown in that study that the proceeds of a 
tax of eight-tenths of a mill, or 8 cents on $100, on the assess- 
ment of 1911 for Texas, would not fall far short of the requisite 
sum — $2,000,000. Such a tax, with wise administration, would 
enable the State of Texas to secure the present average services 
enjoyed in the other States. 

There may be many Texans who would not be permanently 
satisfied by securing only average educational and scientific services 
from their institutions; but it would be prudent to postpone any 
undertaking looking toward leadership, until appropriate meas- 
ures for so high an enterprise can be adopted in the light of ex- 
perience with an average status. 

The rate 8 cents on $100, if Texas candidly proposes to attend 
to the business of securing efficient services from its state insti- 
tutions of higher education, will seem high only to those not in- 
formed of the actual practice in other States. The average of 
the States considered in the study referred to is 6 cents (without 



*"A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universities and Agri- 
cultural Colleges in Fourteen States," issued by the Organization for the 
Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education. 



36 NECESSARY TAX 

allowance for cost of collection), and that has already been raised 
by the recently established 10-cents tax for the University of 
Illinois. The reader is also reminded again that in California, 
Illinois, and Ohio great universities vrere excluded from consid- 
eration whose resources exceed the support provided for state uni- 
versities. The co-operation of the people to secure for themselves 
the services of a comprehensive and efficient university, requires* in 
Wisconsin 8J cents, in Minnesota 8-| cents, in Michigan 6J cents, 
in Iowa 7 cents, in Colorado yJ cents, without allowance for cost 
of collection. These being the States of the whole list with which 
Texas would be most jiistly and most willingly compared, the 8 
cents suggested for Texas should not startle anybody. 

One of the great advantages of an established tax for educa- 
tional institutions is the fact that the increase of property value 
keeps pace, at the same tax rate, with the increase of students and 
with the increasing needs of a growing population for many direct 
public services. 

The addition of one cent for the normal schools would ^ield 
at the outset about §250,000 for those four schools — an average 
of $62,500 a year for each State Xormal School. Under the cur- 
rent appropriations by the legislature for the two years endiQg 
August 31, 1913, each normal school receives on the average 
$58,710 a year. If the standards of those schools are to be raised 
and their forces strengthened, it will be necessary to add more 
than one cent for the normal schools, to the eight cents for the 
three liigher institutions. The addition of two cents for the nor- 
mal schools would yield $500,000, or an average of $125,000 a 
year for each of those schools. 

A tax of one mill (10 cents on $100) is the levy necessary to 
put and keep all the institutions referred to on a basis of average 
efficiency. If the people of Texas desire to enlarge and strengthen 



*A11 tax rates mentioned have been reduced to the same basis of assess- 
ment Taluations, according to estimates by state tax commissions, comp- 
trollers, etc. 



APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 37 

tlieir educational institutions, so as to secure for themselves such 
services as are enjoyed in the States whose social and industrial 
interests are now profiting by those advantages, they must un- 
doubtedly expend at least the amount here indicated. 

Apportionment of the Proposed Tax. 

The obligation upon the governing boards to agree to a fixed 
partitionment of the tax, is peremptory. There is no other way 
to avoid annual struggles that are wretchedly injurious. On the 
other hand, no vital mistake could be made in fixing the division. 
Inasmuch as the total amount is the minimum sufficient to accom- 
plish its purpose, it is certain that no division would apportion 
to any one of the three institutions more than it could use to the 
public advantage. If to any one should be allotted a portion that 
proved insufficient for enterprises which the legislature desired to be 
continued or developed, an additional appropriation would oe made 
for that institution. It is certain that every institution will from 
time to time have to present some special need to the legislature. 
The tax proposed would provide for ordinary expenditures for build- 
ing, but timies must come when some large necessity for additional 
ground, or for some extraordinary building, would require re- 
course to the legislature. Such is the proper theory of a tax for 
regular maintenance and support. The legislature ought to retain 
a regulative power, to be exercised in decisions concerning appro- 
priations additional to the proceeds of an established tax sufficient 
to meet foreseeable necessities. 

It would be rash in any individual to suggest any precise appor- 
tionment as one which ought to be agreed to. I am merely argu- 
ing that the governing boards should agree on some definite ap- 
portionment to be made by the law establishing the tax. The fol- 
lowing statement of what a certain apportionment of a 10-cents 
tax would yield each of the institutions, is intended simply as an 
example. It will be a convenience to the thoughtful reader, as 
either a point of rest or a point of departure for his own judgment. 



38 APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 

A 10-cents tax for the maintenance and development of tho 
State's educational institntions wonld ^deld next year about $2,- 
500,000. The 10 cents must be apportioned somehow; for example 

University of Texas 4^ cents $1,125,000 

A. & M. Col., with Prairie View Inst, for negroes . 3 cents 750,000 

Girls' College i cent 125,000 

Four State formal Schools ($125,000 each) 2 cents 500,000 

Any definite apportionment of the tax wonld be better than an 
apportionment dependent npon contingent factors. There is no 
factor^ or combination of factors, npon which succeeding appor- 
tionments conld be made to depend withont entailing injurious 
consequences. Temptations to swell such factors artifi.cially would 
lead to wasteful or degrading measures. ISTothing could be more 
ill advised, for instance,^ than an apportionment contingently de- 
pendent upon the number of students. Such a law would in- 
evitably tend to corrupt the administration of all the institutions. 
The number of students is by no means the controlling factor of 
proper cost. Its bearing may coincide with that of other needs, 
but a great many services to the State and to individual citizens, 
besides teaching students for the regular term of enrollment, are 
to be taken into account. Every factor, however, has its due 
weight, and it will assist to impartial conclusions to compare the 
apportionment, here stated for purposes of illustration, with the 
number of students for the regular term of enrollment a year ago, 
excluding summer schools and correspondence students. Of the 
total number of students for regular term of enrollment, the Uni- 
versity had 60 per cent, the A. and M. College 32 per cent, and 
the Girls' College, 8 per cent.* If 4J cents were assigned to the 
University, 3 cents to the A. and M. College, and -J cent to the 
Girls' College, the University would receive 56^ per cent of the 
total 8 cents for the three higher institutions, the A. and M. Col- 
lege 37^ per cent, and the Girls' College 6^ per cent. 



*See Table II of "A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Uni- 
,-ersities and Agricultural Colleges in Fourteen States." 



APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 39 

University 60% of students. . . .4^ cents would be 56^% of 8 cents 

A. & M. College. .32% of students 3 cents would be 37^% of 8 cents 

Girls' College 8% of students.... * cent would be 6:1% of 8 cents 

No account was taken of the Prairie View Institute for negroes 
(which is governed by and was charged to the Board of Directors 
of the A. and M. College) in this comparison respecting number 
of students; but the apportionment used for illustration still 
plainly gives considerable advantage on that score to the A. and M. 
College. There are other considerations of greater weight. 

The University and the A. and M. College have many spheres 
of work which are more costh^ than any that should ever be under- 
taken by the G-irls' College. Moreover, it is such public services 
by the University and the A. and ]\I. College that the State of 
Texas especially needs to increase in number, to enlarge in ex- 
tent, and to improve in quality. The tentative distribution, here 
set forth merely as a suggestion, might be adjusted to assign more 
to the University and less to the A. and M. College, but hardly 
in the reverse way. Possibly it might be deemed proper to make 
the allotment to the Girls^ College | cent, and the allotment to 
the A. and M. College 2f cents. It is for the three governing 
boards to determine their advice to the legislature in an impartial, 
statesmanlike way, looking toward an inspiring future. The por- 
tions must be scant for all. Need for buildings might make one 
of them seem, at first, disproportionately inadequate; but the ap- 
portionment ought to be fixed mainly on the more steady factors 
of comparative needs. Future legislatures should be relied upon 
to make additional appropriations when plainly necessary for new 
buildings. 

The very name and nature of each of the three institutions 
vaguely outline the future developments that are for it most de- 
sirable. Tliose developments should be taken as tlie chief criteria 
for a just apportionment of the tax. 



40 APPOPtTIOKMENT OF THE TAX 

The college for girls has a comparatively restricted sphere of 
work. The number of its students will remain comparatively 
small, — if only for the reason that so many girls and young 
women will always attend the normal schools and the university. 
It is not probable that the ratio of the number of students in the 
girls' college to the number of students in the university will 
ever be very different from that of the portions of the tax assigned 
to them in the apportionment we have used for illustration. Costly 
departments of postgraduate instruction and research need not 
and should not be maintained there. In short, the proper cost 
of "a university of the first class" is more than ten times the cost 
of an excellent college for girls. The apportionment referred to 
makes the ratio nine to one; but the addition of the university's 
income from endowment would keep its resources about ten times 
the resources of the girls' college. These are simply business 
facts. Size does not measure importance, nor is preciousness to 
be measured by cost. The present writer certainly has no lack 
of appreciation of the State's college for girls and young women. 
Ho has served three terms as a member of its board of regents, 
and long before he began that service, in an address at the open- 
ing of the institution on September 23, 1903, he spoke the follow- 
ing words, which are quoted here because they set forth the idea 
of far-reaching influence independent of local magnitude. 

"The new departure whose inauguration we witness today constitutes 
a high tribute to the statesmanship which has given this answer to the 
clamor of genuine but more or less blind popular demands. What it shall 
lead to would be too much for any man to say today, but it seems to me 
a pregnant event from which great and far-reaching consequences may 
follow. ... Its immediate work, the wise training of a few hun- 
dred girls every year, is a most useful enterprise; but the scope of 
its effects may reach beyond such limits, moulding affairs which con- 
cern hundreds of thousands instead of hundreds. The time may not 
be far distant when every high school in Texas shall look to this new 
school for girls as the source of fundamental changes in its work and 
ideals, by which courses of study now offered without discrimination to 



APPOKTIONMEXT OF THE TAX 41 

boys and girls will be differentiated in recognition of facts of nature and 
human nature so long and so crudely ignored. Our larger cities may 
find themselves led to dividing their high schools,— one for boys and one 
for girls, with suitably differentiated courses of study and methods of 
manao-ement. Who can tell? Reasons are not wanting to fear that the 
uncompromising application of the co-educational plan is working dam- 
age. It may be that what is proper for elementary schools and later for 
some professional schools and for postgraduate studies, is unfit for the 
secondary and collegiate stages. These questions are now engaging atten- 
tion throughout our common country; and the decision to which this State 
shall come depends largely upon the experience and reputation to be 
gained here in this institution, the first to be fundamentally differentiated 
upon grounds of sex that the State of Texas has established." 

That high presentiment of the germinal meaning and potential 
force of the institution^ I hold toda}^ — confirmed by actual events 
in which its realization has already been begun. But such an 
estimate of the vajue of possible results has no bearing on the 
financial question under consideration. The necessary cost of the 
proper instruction and other activities needed to accomplish the 
main purposes of each institution, should determine the apportion- 
ment of a tax for their support. The value to individuals and to 
the State of all resulting effects is a matter that takes care of 
itself. For example, the fact that the teaching of law is less ex- 
pensive than the teaching of medicine does not imply any com- 
parison between the value of law and the value of medicine. Any 
discussion of the comparative value of law and medicine would 
be useless — probably absurd. It is enough to know that both are 
necessary, and that each ought to be taught well, or not taught at 
all. Knowledge and appreciation of domestic economy and arts 
on the part of women is of immense value to themselves and to 
society ; but it is one of the chief services of the College of Indus- 
trial Arts for Women that its ideals and work should lead all other 
institutions that undertake the education of girls, to offer some 
of the courses of instruction for which it has developed apprecia- 
tion and should maintain standards. The university and the 



42 APPORTIOXMEXT OF THE TAX 

normal schools have already begun to follow its lead in this re- 
spect, and domestic arts courses have been established in many 
high schools. The largest result of the work that should be done 
by the College of Industrial Arts for Women will appear in due 
time through work done and paid for by other colleges and by 
normal schools and by a thousand high schools, and through effects 
of the latter in a million homes. Of course, the place and need 
for the college will continue to expand. It is the only non-coedu- 
cational college for girls supported by the State. Many parents 
will prefer to send daughters there, and it should be the best collegi- 
ate institution for many girls. Inspiration and leadership in its 
sphere of work and ideas must never fail. It is a permanent and 
should be a growing part of the State's provision for higher edu- 
cation. 

The urgent need of the State of Texas for a strong and active 
college of agriculture is too apparent to call for argument. The 
development at the A. and M. College of a co]nprehensive school of 
technolog}^ would, also, be of great service to the State; but there 
is no hope of means sufficient to reach good standards, in the near 
future, in all branches. It would seem to be an appropriate policy 
to strengthen such of the present technological departments as 
could be most readily raised to good standards, and to devote in- 
creased resources mainly to invigorating and enlarging all agricul- 
tural departments. Perhaps it would be expedient to desist from 
some non-agricultural undertaking that has been only nominally 
attempted. 

There is certainly one thing that has been put upon the A. and 
M. College from which it ought to be freed, even if its resources 
were unlimited. At present the college is charged with "the ad- 
ministration of the feed control law." That matter properly ap- 
pertains to an executive department of the state government. It 
was a fundamental mistake to attach it to an educational institution. 
The feed control law caunot be administered without alert prosecu- 



APrORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 43 

tion of willful violators of the law. Of course, the main object 
should be to prevent infractions of the law. This great State, with 
its population of four millions, needs a vigorous administration of 
wise laws for the protection of the people against injurious or frau- 
dulent substances in food, drugs, and feed for animals. Such pro- 
tection is as essential to good government as the prevention of 
false weights and measures or counterfeited money. But all these 
are functions that can be righth^ discharged only by the executive 
department of the government. No educational institution should 
be required to administer any general law; and any such, institu- 
tion, having thoughtlessly sought or acquiesced in such, an in- 
compatibility, should clear itself of the impropriety as promptly 
as possible. It is to be hoped that the next Legislature will es- 
tablish in the executive branch of the government a pure food 
and drug department to have charge of all germane affairs. It 
should be equipped for full efficiency in its double function — ^the 
scientific ascertainment of the facts, and the enforcement of the 
law. The commissioner in charge of such a department should 
be appointed by the governor, and should combine in himself 
the scientific attainments needed to organize and control a staff 
of chemists, bacteriologists, etc., and the knowledge and the cour- 
age necessary to prosecute successfully willful violators of the law. 
The immense and varied agricultural interests of Texas present 
such need and opportunity for scientific services, that the problem 
of making the best use of narrow means must be difficult. It 
would repay the people of Texas a hundred-fold, for example, to 
spend a million dollars a year on agricultural experiment and dis- 
semination work alone. Hitherto it has been solely through the 
co-operation of the federal government that anything has been 
provided for such services. The people of Texas have as yet done 
nothing for themselves in this respect. In one of its many ad- 
mirable editorials upon the advancement of agriculture, ^Tarm 
and Eanch" (issue of June 15, 1912) gives an account of the 
earnest endeavors of the A. and M. Colleo^e and of its director of 



44 APPORTIONMEN'T OF THE TAX 

experiment stations, to improve the experiment station service. 
But tlie editorial writer points cnt the meager support, and asks, 
'"how could the people expect to get results of real benefit?" He 
declares that, "since the passage of the Hatch* act, the State of 
Texas has not appropriated one cent for maintenance of the ex- 
periment station at College Station." The article includes a state- 
ment of the director, from which the following striking passages 
are quoted: 

"When I arrived here August 15, 1911, I found only four divisions 
of the station conducting any lines of original research, . . . and 
none of these, with the possible exception of the division of chemistry, 
had work of suflBeient volume to be of more effect upon the great field 
of Texas agriculture than the thumping of a rubble out into a mill pond. 
In fact, the divisions of the station which ought to be doing the great- 
est amount of work for the Texas farmer were the least developed of 
all. . . . While it is not my aim to weaken any of the stronger 
divisions (as they themselves should be strengthed), I shall devote the 
greater part of my energies for the first few years, at least, to strength- 
ening and amplifying the work of the more fundamental divisions. . , . 
We should have a specialist devoting his time to the corn industry of 
the state, but have no funds with which to employ him. We should have 
a legume specialist and a sorghum specialist also. In planning the work 
in agronomy we have projected every line of investigation that our funds 
will permit us to conduct, and have extended this work from the main 
station out on to all of the sub-stations in various sections of the state. 
In the future we shall have state-wide data in reference to every given 
crop practice. . . . 

"Experiment stations are the agencies which create or discover new 
and valuable ideas for the farmers, . . . All disseminating agencies 
are drawing on some staff of investigators for the information which they 



*The beginning of experiment stations in the United States was the 
act of Congress, called the Hatch Act, passed in 1887, which estab- 
lished an agricultural experiment station as a department of every state 
agricultural college. In 1906 the Adams act was passed to increase 
stimulation to the research urgently needed by the agricultural interests 
of the entire country. These were co-operative measures, and were not 
intended to constitute the whole support of such work. The people of 
each State are expected to do their part. 



APPORTIONMENT OP THE TAX 45 

disseminate. I consider it shameful that these agencies in Texas at the 
present time get most of the information which they disseminate from 
outside sources. . . . 

"Texas is in every sense the greatest agricultural state in the union, 
and yet it maintains one of the smallest experiment staffs in the world." 

There are at least four great sections of Texas characterized 
so distinctly by different agricultural conditions that probably four 
main experiment stations are needed^ each to be the center for sub- 
stations in its section. It might seem, upon consideration, advis- 
able and practicable to maintain a special school preparatory for 
the agricultural college in connection with each of such main sta- 
tions. But it is not the purpose of this discussion to attempt to 
consider details of internal administration. The main point here 
is that only by harmonious co-operation will it be possible to 
secure the proposed tax for all the institutions. It should be real- 
ized by all who take part in responsible deliberations concerniiig 
the apportionment of the tax, that its proceeds would fall far short 
of making feasible all that is desirable. There must be selection 
and mutual concessions. It may, indeed, be best, as has been 
already suggested, to acquire some experience with such average 
standards as could be attained in the most essential departments 
through the proposed tax, before attempting more. It is probable, 
also, that the taxed wealth of Texas will grow rapidly, and that 
continual expansion and improvement will be possible without 
increase of the rate of taxation. 

When we consider such a university as is needed by the great 
commonwealth of Texas, the needs for enlargement and improve- 
ment of the present establishment are bewildering. Desirable 
measures outrun all possible resources even further and more widely 
than in the case of the A. and M. College. The greater part of 
the University's portion of the proposed tax could be expended 
profitably, for instance, upon its medical school alone. Here 
again, therefore, there must be the necessity for selection. The 



46 APPORTIOXMEIsTT OF THE TAX 

chief program should be one of improving to a high standard of 
usefulness all essential departments alread}^ existing. Many such 
departments are now merety languishing in an incipient or en- 
feebled condition. Some new departments should^ doubtless, be 
added, — for instance, a department of prcA^entive medicine and 
public hygiene in the medical school. Or, means ma}^ be avail- 
able for adding some entire school, such as a school of journalism 
in the College of Arts. The general principle has been forcibly 
stated by President Bryan of Indiana University as follows : 

"In some cases, we haA^e a university whose circle of activities ap- 
proaches correspondence with the whole circle of services which society 
requires from learned men. Unhappily, however, there is no university 
rich enough to carry out with success so vast a program. The rich- 
est university is, therefore, in peril of so multiplying the lines of its 
work that all the lines of its work shall be lowered in quality. It is 
very possible in this way for a university to so scatter its resources 
that it can do nothing at all of first-rate quality. Whether a univer- 
sity be relatively rich or poor, its greatest mistake, financial and edu- 
cational, is to indulge in a policy of expansions which live by sapping 
the strengthL from established lines of work. . . . All forms of expan- 
sion come to the same thing if they involve spending money upon more 
things than can be done well. 

"The penalties which fall upon an institution which sins greatly in 
this respect are severe. The library suft'ers. The laboratories suffer. 
Salaries are kept down. The best men escape. Those who remain lose 
heart. The quality of everything done about the institution is lowered. 
The final calamity is that all this tends to bring to and establish in the 
institution a faculty of mediocre men. There is no known [quick] rem- 
edy for this calamity. If the institution grows suddenly rich, the way 
to progress is blocked by a group of men who cannot be removed except 
by death, and whose mediocrity will pervade the institution for a gen- 
eration. It is my belief that there is no American university which has 
not suffered more or less by expansions which have affected the quality 
of its work. It is certain that some of the universities with small 
incomes, in their effort to cover every field, have brought themselves in 
every field to a deplorable weakness. And it is certain that some among 
the universities with large incomes have, through the same error, grown 
large without having grown great." 



APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 47 

x\s lias been suggested by a bracketed word inserted in the 
preceding quotation, although there is no quick remedy for the full 
consequences of the mistake referred to, the remedy is not un- 
known. ^The way to resume is to resume/ Critics should not be 
too censorious of the error of having attempted to do too much. 
Good intentions do not avert the consequences of a mistake, but 
they render correction comparatively easy. During its first forma- 
tive period a state university may properly err a little in the way 
of adding departments before means for their support are sup- 
plied, in order to attract the sympathetic attention of the public 
and the legislature. 'No such policy, however, may be followed 
without injury for thirty years — the period during which the Uni- 
versity of Texas has been kept in swaddling clothes. It has been 
zeal to serve beyond measure, that has commonly led state univer- 
sities to attempt to do more than could be done well with the 
means put at their disposal. When increased means are supplied 
to a university that has been led into such error, if its rulers re- 
main blind or perverse '^the last state of that man is worse than 
the first ;" but the way to progress is open, if its rulers will see it. 
The caravan must move with some crippled members and with some 
burdens that cannot be cast away incontinently, but the way lies 
open and straight forward. Some of the lame will soon learn to 
walk sturdily, and the burdens will gradually diminish. N'othing 
could be more unreasonable than to assign dissatisfaction with some 
existing circumstance, as a ground for refusing to establish the 
only permanent condition upon which proper results can be built. 
The worse anyone thinks of some present circumstance, the more 
urgent he should be to establish a financial basis for improvement. 

Among the necessities for the University of Texas are some 
genuine graduate departments. It is required by the organic law 
of the State that "a university of the first class" shall be main- 
tained. As a matter of fact, the existing institution could hardly 
be termed a university of any class in the distinctive meaning of 
the word — the meaning in which university is distinguished from 



48 APPORTIOXMENT OF THE TAX 

college. The imiversitv degrees, as distingiiislied from the college 
degrees, have never been conferred, nor could any graduate of the 
"University of Texas,-' under present conditions, be candidly ad- 
vised to stndy for the Ph. D. degree in this State. Xo one has 
ever yet done so. and no well-informed man will ever do so nntil 
conditions are changed. A few years ago the catalog of the Uni- 
versity of Texas began to announce requirements for the Ph. D. 
degree, and it has since continued such an announcement ; but no 
one has ever finished the courses, nor have they in any legitimate 
sense ever existed. That is the sort of thing that ought never to 
be done again. 

The time has come when the legislature of Texas ought to de- 
cide whether this State needs a real university, or not. If they 
decide that Texas does not need a university, the name "Univer- 
mty of Texas'' should be changed to something like Texas State 
^College. If they decide that Texas does need a universit}^, they 
should see the immediate necessity of erecting a university on the 
'broad collegiate foundation which has been well and firmlv laid 
The true condition was recently (September 28, 1912) stated very 
spicily by "Farm and Eanch," in a leading article entitled "Be- 
ginning a State University": "The fathers named the infant 
'University' before it was born, just as we name a baby '^Thomas 
Jefferson,' in the hope that with the years it will grow to be a 
Thomas Jefferson in intellect and power and be not one in name 
onlv. So it is with the university; it must grow to be one in reality, 
not remain one in name only. . . . The guardians of the 
future must feel an added interest in it and give it additional 
care and subsistence. . . . There is today a greater demand 
for higher education, a very much greater demand for more de- 
partments of higher education, than ever before. The University 
of Texas should measure up to the standing of Texas in the sister- 
hood of States." 

If any man criticizes harshly any present fact, let him under- 
£tand that its ef&cient, if not its immediate cause, has been in- 



-u»roRTTOK:\n:NT of the tax 40 

adequate and precarious support. Let him know that the average 
salary paid the teaching force of the University of Texas thirty 
years ago was double the present average salary. How could an 
intelligent man demand of the University of Texas, in its present 
circumstances, the first-class research and manifold services to the 
general public which have come to be essential characteristics of 
the modern university? The youth of the state are crowding its 
halls so that the number of its teachers (no one paid more than 
three-fourths as much, and the average of all about half as much 
as was paid thirty years ago) is insufficient to perform the work 
of undergraduate collegiate instruction as required by good stand- 
ards. Modern society has reached a stage when weak or spurious 
services by a state institution of higher education are no longer 
permissible. They are a snare for the youth who are led to wast- 
ing irrecoverable time, and the people at large are cheated of the 
general benefits of genuine and strong work. 

There would be, of course, no propriety in considering the de- 
tails of a future program for any one of the institutions in the 
joint counsels of the governing boards of all, and any attempt to 
dictate internal policies would be a most pernicious precedent.* It 
is sim.piy required that all should recognize that each of the in- 
stitutions has almost unlimited opportunities for expansion, and 
urgent need for the strengthening of its forces for work already 
undertalcen. The occasion has for its essence the duty of co-oper- 
ating, and it would be inappropriate for any member of one of 
the boards to regard himself as a special advocate. The three 
boards are responsible for harmonious advice to the legislature for 
a wise apportionment of a tax for the support of the three insti- 
tutions. The policy best for the State should be formulated. It 
is, therefore, from the point of view of the State's interests in all 
of its institutions, and not as a partisan contestant for any one of 



*As to infringement by the legislature upon the sphere of administra- 
tion, see p, 3. 



50 AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT 

them^ that their regents ought to fix the apportionment of a perma- 
nent tax. When the people have only a choice of electing one or 
several self-constitnted office-seekers, it has often resulted, for in- 
stance, that an alderman or member of a city school board has 
shown himself incapable of conceiving the city's good, and has 
thought only of his own "ward/*' But the people of Texas have 
charged the governors of their State with the high duty of selecting 
citizens fitted by character and intelligence for the great and honor- 
able and unpaid office of regent of a state institution of higher 
education. They are therefore entitled to expect that, when the 
occasion demands it, men so appointed will pass judgment on a 
large question in a magnanimous way, holding in view the State's 
interest. Tactics of each grabbing for his own ward would be 
grossly out of place at a council board charged with the duty of 
giving good advice to the law-making power for the apportion- 
ment of a tax for the educational institutions of the State. 



It is proper, and may be interesting, to recall in this connection 
the unsuccessful attempt, more than twenty years ago, to induce 
the 22nd and 23rd Legislatures to make partial restitution to 
University of Texas for the most valuable portion of its land 
endowment which was taken from it (before it was born*) during 
the war of secession. If that violent loss had not been suffered, 
the State today would be at no charge on account of its university ; 
and the University of Texas would be the most richly endowed in- 
stitution of learning in the world. Bills to make partial restitu- 
tion by conveying to the University half of the residue of public 
domain (5,000,000 acres) which at that time still remained unap- 
propriated, failed to pass. Ten years later the whole of the said 
residue of public domain was added to the public school fund. I 
quote some passages from a striking statement concerning the pur- 
pose of the said bills, issued in 1892 by the University regents. It 
is entitled : "To the People of Texas, An Address by the Board of 



*The University of Texas opened its first session in September, 1883. 



AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT 51 

Eegents of University of Texas." It has become a rare document, 
but I possess several copies given to me at the time by the actual 
author of the address : 

"The Constitution requires the Legislature 'as soon as practicable [to] 
establish, organize, and provide for the maintetiance, support and direction 
of a University of the first class.' 

"For the organization and direction of th€ University, legislative provi- 
sion has been made; the degree in which the other part of this constitu- 
tional mandate has been fulfilled may be seen from what follows: [Com- 
parative statistic^ for 1892]. 

"These figures need no commentary. States far poorer than Texas with 
little more than half her population, appreciating the public utility of a 
well supported and well equipped university, are giving out of their 
smaller means not merely relatively but absolutely more and much more 
than Texas to this end. Yet the founders** of Texas, more clearly, per- 
haps, than other men, saw and insisted upon the need and value to a 
commonwealth of an institution devoted to the higher learning abundantly 
equipped and maintained. They provided for this and provided amply so 
firm was their conviction. If the State in grievous times had not laid 
hands upon what the builders of the State had set aside for the Univer- 
sity; if the University had today what the fathers bestowed upon her as 
a perpetual patrimony (which she no longer has through no fault of hers 
but hy the action of the State), so far from asking the Legislature for 
aJiy thing, the University of Texas would now be one of the greatest centers 
of learning and one of the most richly endowed institutions in the world, 
Texas would now have all this without being at the least charge, and this 
source of prosperity and renown would be perennial. Youth from all parts 
of the land would be flocking to Texas as they now congregate in the great 
Northern institutions. The opportunity which the Legislature now has of 
ultimately redeeming the lost vantage can never come again. 

"It is of the utmost importance to a commonwealth that the best trained 
and ablest men in it should be in sympathy with its spirit; this is best 
secured by home education.* But if young men of this stamp, who are 



**0f the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, forty-six 
were college bred men. 

*"Every State should rear its own men in every stature of manhood, of 
intelligence, and of culture, according to their capabilities, upon its own 
soil, and thereby engender and preserve an intense homogeneousness in the 



52 AN HISTORICAL DOCUMEJfT 

most valuable to the State, cannot obtain the best advantages at home, 
they will necessarily go in large numbers far from home to those places 
where the best advantages are to be had. By a wise foresight, by a policy 
that forecasts further than a couple of years, the State of Texas can rear 
an institution to which the vast majority of her able, ambitious young 
men will be attracted. Not only will the benefits accruing to the Statq 
from her sons receiving the best education of the day within its borders 
be gained, but the large annual tribute which passes out of the State into 
other States, by reason of Texans going for higher education to the better 
equipped and more liberally maintained institutions, will dwindle into 
insignificant proportions. If the State does not maintain such an institu- 
tion, with the growth of wealth and population, this sum, already great, 
which is lost to the State, must increase largely with every year. In 1884 
it was estimated that half a million dollars was annually spent out of 
the State by Texan students. ... If the State will put the University 
in a condition where it can compete on equal terms with other true uni- 
versities, it will directly in this way alone recoup the whole outlay. 
Further, young men from other States will be drawn to the University of 
Texas and counterflow begin. But besides this, familiarity with Texas, 
the revelation of the manifold advantages which this empire offers, the 
ties of friendship and association knit during college life, would infallibly 
draw not a few of these to settle here, bringing good ability and often- 
times capital into the State. Seeing these things no better than the Texan 
fathers but acting upon them far better than the Texan sons, other States 
have more liberally provided for their universities, and they have reaped 
the accruing benefits. One of the chief factors in the rapid development 
and enrichment of some of the Northwestern States is their univer- 
sities. . . . 

"In Germany, where the value of universities is well appreciated, after 
the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine, the ancient University of Strassburg, 
destroyed under French domination, was reconstituted in 1872. In order 
to do this — that is, to make a university of the first class — about 4,500,000 
dollars was expended in buildings and equipment. . . . Already a 
library of 700,000 volumes has been built up. Again the Grand Duchy of 



character of its population which must result in the concentrated power 
and elevated prosperity of the whole body politic in association. This full 
result can be attained only by providing all of the grades of education, 
from the lowest to the highest, in harmonious co-operixtion." — ^lessage ot 
Governor Roberts, April 6, 1882. 



AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT 53 

Baden, little inore than three times as large as Travis county, with three- 
quarters of a million fewer inhabitants than Texas (i. e., with about two- 
thirds the population of Texas), poor and debt-burdened, supports, besides 
other public institutions, two complete universities, Heidelberg and Frei- 
berg. . . . Examples can be easily multiplied. . . . 

"Directly, as has been shown, a great University more than pays for 
itself; indirectly, though no less surely, in many ways it repays to the 
people who cherish it, some ten, some twenty, some a hundredfold; and 
the multiplicity of repayment generally bears a ratio to the liberality of 
support. Thus Harvard and the University of Virginia have many times 
returned to Massachusetts and Virginia the cost of their maintenance, 
while adding lustre to the names of those States. The University of 
Texas, in its brief, ill-fed life, has accomplished a work enormously dis- 
proportionate to its cost. ... To look at it from the very lowest 
point of view, this has been a cheap advertisement and is silently doing 
more for the State than bureaus of information, statistics and immigra- 
tion could ever accomplish. Nothing so widely or so successfully adver- 
tises a community as a university of the first class. It is, moreover, in 
true universities that those forces have germinated and developed, which 
in profounder ways have brought unpurchasable blessings to the lands 
that have cherished them. ... If means were furnished properly to 
man and to equip the University of Texas, it would, in a brief time, be 
recognized as one of the very first in the whole country, and the sphere 
of its usefulness and benefactions would be immeasurably enlarged. . . . 

"The trained man is always better than the untrained man, and the 
value to the individual and thence to the commonwealth of the highest 
training is evident. It is not indeed true that every educated man will be 
more successful than every uneducated man; but it is true and demon- 
strable that any given man will be more successful, if he is educated, 
than he would have been, had he not been educated. The struggles of 
men that have been great and useful, to obtain higher education, where 
there was no public provision for it, are a commonplace in biographical 
literature. But, in regarding these, it is apt to be forgotten how many 
more of just smaller ability or energy have sunk in these struggles from 
which a few emerge. Their abilities and usefulness are maimed and ham- 
pered, hindered of full fruitage, both to individual and to the community. 
Universities act as instruments for increasing the efficiency of those they 
train, and with increased efficiency in its citizens a commonwealth prospers 
as would otherwise be impossible. . . . 



54 CO-OPERATIOJsT BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

"It is a, grave mistake, then, to suppose that universities are mere con- 
trivances to teach vs^hat there is to be known; they do accomplish this, 
and it is no light or trivial thing. But beyond this they awaken latent 
capabilities that would otherwise, save in rare cases, slumber or be crushed 
out, and thus be lost to the individual and the State; silently and subtly 
(forces that lie beneath the surface are ever potent) they vivify the people 
externally and internally. A public free university is the only means b]g 
which the poor man's children utilize without serious loss the native 
ability which God has given them. The rich can afford to pay for the 
best education the world can give and thus reap the gain of it; but to 
the poor and to those of narrow means, enormous and generally insur- 
mountable obstacles lie across the path, unless a home institution equal 
to any is supported by the State. In the name of these, the major por- 
tion of the population, the Regents make appeal." 

Co-operation hy tJie Federal Government 

Co-operation by the federal government in regard to agricul- 
tural experiment stations has been referred to. It is an indica- 
tion of the vastness of the need and opportunities for scientific 
assistance to all industries^ that it is now proposed to do for min- 
ing what has been done for agriculture. The "Foster BilF^ has 
already been very favorably considered and a similar bill will prob- 
ably be considered by the next Congress. The bill provides that 
appropriations, beginning at $5,000 a year and rising $5,000 each 
succeeding year to $.35,000 as the annual appropriation thereafter, 
shall be paid to each State for the maintenance of a school of 
mines in one of its state educational institutions. The object of 
the proposed appropriation is the encouragement of instruction, 
research, and experiment with a view to teaching scientific knowl- 
edge of the best and safest methods of mining and producing 
metals, coal and other minerals, oil, gas, and medicinal waters, 
and the concentrating and refining and other preparation of the 
same for marketing; and the study and prevention of explosions, 
fires, and other dangers incident to mining, in order to secure in- 
telligent conservation^ use, and development of the resources of 



co-opp:RATIO^^' by federal covernment 55 

the country^ to make the lives of miners more safe and property 
in mines more secure, and to promote the general welfare.* The 
bill provides : "If there be already established in any State a 
school of mines and mining under the control of said State, or a 
department of instruction in mining connected with any institu- 
tion of learning controlled by said State, then the moneys appro- 
priated in this Act shall go to said school or department of in- 
struction already established." 

The last quoted provision of the bill would determine the loca- 
tion of the school in Texas, inasmuch as there is no school of 
mines at the A. and M. College, and one has been "already estab- 
lished'' in the University. The University "School of Mines'' is, 
indeed, a very feeble affair, but when taken together with the 
"University Bureau of Economic Geology and Technology," a re- 
spectable recipient of the federal aid exists. Those two parts of 
the University naturally belong in one school, if such a bill 
should be enacted by the Congress. The following official state- 
ment of the Bureau of Economic Geology shows how exactly in 
line its work is with the proposed federal co-operation: 

"In order to meet the steady demand for information concerning the 
mineral resources of the State, the Board of Regents of the University 
established a Bureau of Economic Geology and Technology in the year 
1909. In so far as the funds available have permitted, this bureau has 
resumed the work of the University Mineral Survey which was suspended 
in the year 1905, from lack of means. 

"The action of the Board of Regents in providing means for the main- 
tenance of such a bureau marks an, entirely new departure in educational 
work. No other institution of learning in the country has taken upon 
itself the duty of providing, at its own expense, an office to which any 
one may apply for information of this character. Great interest is now 
being shown in the investigation and development of the mineral wealth 
of the State, not only by the citizens of Texas, but by others from beyond 
its borders. 

"The economic importance of the bureau's work for the State may 



*Condensed from Sec. 3 of the bill. 



56 AX IMPORTANT DISTINCTION 

be inferred from the fact that the present annual value of the mineral 
products of Texas is close to $20,000,000. 

"In connection with its work the bureau maintains a large collection 
of material illustrative of the economic geology of Texas; asphalt rocks; 
cement; clays; coal and lignite; building and ornamental stones; ores 
of copper, silver, lead, zinc, quicksilver, iron, tin, uranium, etc.; oils and 
sections of oil wells; sulphur; graphite; salt; minerals for the manu- 
facture of white lime, paving brick, etc. These collections were begun by 
the Texas Geological Survey, 1888-1892, continued by the University 
Mineral Survey, 1901-1905, and now comprise by far the largest and 
best collection to illustrate the economic geology of Texas ever brought 
together. The building and ornamental stones shown in six-inch cubes, 
columns, slabs, etc., cannot be duplicated anywhere. They exhibit the 
wealth of the State, in this direction, in a beautiful and attractive 
manner. Additions are constantly being made. The museum is con- 
sulted by architects, contractors, and builders, as well as by many who 
are concerned in the development of the State along other lines. 

"In July, 1911, the bureau issued a complete report on The Compo- 
sition of Texas Coals and Lignites and The Use of Producer Gas in 
Texas. In connection with the investigation of the fuels of the State 
an experimental gas plant is in active operation. The different coals 
and lignites are being distilled for the production of heating and illu- 
minating gas, tar and sulphate of ammonia. This inquiry is also to 
include an examination of the different woods used for fuel in this State. 
A course in The Technology of Fuels has been given by the bureau 
during the year. . . . 

"Arrangements are being made for the installation of an experimental 
gas producer in which the coals and lignites of the State may be tested 
in a practical manner. This will be distinct from the experimental gas 
plant already in operation, as the work in this latter plant is for the 
purpose of investigating the products from the distillation of coal and 
lignite in closed retorts. 

"Through the purchase of the private library of a prominent gas and 
coal engineer, supplemented by newer books on these subjects, the bureau 
has now at its disposal the best technical library in the entire southwest." 

It would be an unfortunate misunderstanding, if any one should 
wish to apply to the routine affairs of private business the policy 
rightly adopted by the bureau of economic geology in offering its 



SCHOOL OF MINES 57 

services to all inquirers who are investigating ways and means of 
discovering and exploiting the mineral resources of Texas. It is 
in the main new knowledge, not otherwise obtainable, that the 
TJniversily-'s bureau of economic geology and the A. and M. Col- 
lege's experiment stations seek and offer. Few things would be 
more ^veak and foolish than to yield to importunities from private 
individuals, or from governmental agencies (such as prosecuting 
attorneys), for gratuitous services of a routine kind, e. g., analyses 
of substances or human organs suspected of containing poisons, 
mere assays of familiar ores, etc. President James of the Univer- 
sity of Jlliuois has made the following pertinent remarks on this 
subject : 

"The larger our income becomes the greater the pressure for this 
sort of thing. The last legislature passed a law giving the University 
of Illinois the benefit of a mill tax (10 cents on $100) beginning July 1, 
1913. That will probably give us two and one-half million dollars per 
year. Accompanying that and springing up in its wake since has been 
an enormous demand on the part of almost everybody who could think 
of anything the university might do for him to write us and ask us 
to undertake it, pleading the increase of our resources. I think it is 
one of the greatest dangers which state universities have to face — this 
tendency of the private business man to call on us for the solution of 
some practical problem in his own business which could be solved by 
any chemist just as well as by the chemists appointed by the University 
of Illinois. I think these are very large problems that will come up to 
trouble us with increasing frequency and force and degree as the years 
go on." 

Xo school of mines, or courses in mining engineering should 
be duplicated in two state institutions. This is now so well un- 
derstood, that in States where the mistake has been made, the 
weaker of the two schools will probably soon be discontinued. Dr. 
K. C. Babcock, Specialist in Higher Education of the U. S. Bureau 
of Education, speaking a year ago, gave an amusing instance: 
"I am glad to report that at least one institution has seen light 
in this matter and has abandoned outright its rudimentary min- 



58 CO-OPERATION- WITH COLLEGES 

ing engineering course. If I am not mistaken, its president has 
praetially agreed that, if any student in his institution finds him- 
self strongly bent upon mining engineering, such student shall 
have his fare paid to a good mining engineering school, to get 
first-class technical instruction, and that his university, at least, 
shall not undertake this highly expensive course." 

A school of mines involves some of the most expensive courses 
of instruction that are undertaken by educational institutions. It 
is for that reason, coupled with the importance of conserving and 
exploiting in the light of scientific knowledge the mineral re- 
sources of the country, that the Congress contemplates co-operat- 
ing with the several States for the improvement of schools of 
mines. It is to be hoped that Texas will in the near future begin 
to perform its part in the co-operation intended by the federal 
government, in regard to both agriculture and mining. If Texas 
had no other interest than the deposits of lignite that underlie 
one-fourth of its entire area, it would be a paying investment 
for the coffers of the State — to say nothinof of the benefits to its 
citizens — to spend as much as the State spends on any entire in- 
stitution, on investigations and experiments for improved opera- 
tions in mining lignite and preparing it for economical use. 

Co-operation with Colleges 

The relations between a state university and secondary schools, 
especially the public high schools, constitute the most important of 
all fields of educational co-operation; but the main features of 
that co-operation belong to Part II of this study* — being affairs 
of internal organization and administration. Eelations of a state 



*Se€, also, an address by the present writer before the Department of 
Higher Education of the Southern Educational Association, Dec, 1911, 
on "The Proper Relation of the American University to the American 
High School," published in the 1911 volume of the Proceedings of the 
Association, in the Jan., 1912, issue of the Texas School Journal, in the 
Jan., 1912, issue of the American School Board Journal, and in the 
Sept., 1912, issue of the American Educational Review. 



CO-OPERATION WITH COLLEGES 59 

institution with denominational and privately endowed colleges 
do not fall much within the express title of Part I — "Features 
of Organization for which the Legislature is Responsible/' but 
the legislature is not without some direct responsibility. The 
colleges of every sort have all been created by the authority of 
the State, and their graduates offer their services and their 
degrees in a common market. "The State should concern itself/' 
says Dr. Babcock, Specialist in Higher Education in the TJ. S. 
Bureau of Education, "with three things related to these colleges 
[not state institutions] : they should contribute to, and not un- 
dermine, the efficiency of education in the state; they should 
describe and maintain the definite standards which give them a 
reason for being; and their education should be what it professes 
to be, so that the time and money of no student or citizen of the 
state shall be obtained under false pretenses or through misrep- 
resentation. The law of the state of New York should be a model 
for other states in reforming their control of educational institu- 
tions within their borders.'' Speaking of the colleges of the whole 
country, the same writer tells the results of wide investigations, 
as follows: 

"There is a wide difference in institutions bearing the name of col- 
lege. Probably twenty-five per cent of the institutions calling them- 
selves colleges or universities are doing little more than preparatory 
work. Another twenty-five per cent, or, perhaps, one hundred and fifty 
colleges, are doing only fairly effectively the first two years of a four 
years course. At least one hundred and fifty more are simply colleges, 
but well established upon the four years basis, with good endowments, 
and with reasonable prospects of permanence. ... 

"Recently there has come to our attention in the Bureau of Educa- 
tion the operations of several sorts of colleges or universities of ques- 
tionable origin and practices. Some of them are pure fakes. Some of 
them proceed in objectionable ways to offer courses and degrees by cor- 
respondence, even in such subjects as dentistry, civil engineering, and 
electrical engineering. Another group cheapen degrees and scholarship 
by methods, which, if used in law or medicine, would be characterized 
as unprofessional. No effective attempt seems to have been made, either 



60 CO-OPERATION^ WITH COLLEGES 

by the state university or by the state, within the states in which these 
institutions are located, to protect their own citizens, or those of other 
States who are reached by correspondence and advertising, from impo- 
sition by these offending or degenerate institutions. No state has a 
monopoly of -the odium of granting charters indiscriminately. . . . 
Washington and Chicago are two chief centers of educational mal- 
practice." 

President Pritohett's remarks upon the most flagrant instance 
of neglect of legislative responsibility, concliide with a suggestion 
which indicates how far-reaching may be the obligation of every 
institution of higher education. In his Sixth Annual Report to 
the Foimdation for the Advancement of Teaching, he says: 

"Congress, occupied with its larger duties, has so neglected, as the 
local legislature for the district, to throw safeguards around the estab- 
lishment of institutions that any three citizens, no matter how meagre 
their qualifications, may incorporate themselves as a university and con- 
fer any degree, except in medicine. It is not necessary for them to pro- 
cure any endowment, to own any equipment, or even to have any habitat 
beyond a postoffice address. The curriculum is entirely within their 
control, and they might legally confer bachelor's, master's, and doctor's 
degrees upon every person in the United States, or in the universe, 
upon the sole condition of the willingness of the recipient. The only 
condition that is generally enforced is a financial one. Washington has 
therefore become logically the home of a large number of institutions 
whose dishonest practices are immensely aided by the apparent prestige 
of a location at the federal capital, and by the astounding privilege 
which enables these enterprises to say truly, that they are 'incorporated 
under the provisions of an Act of Congress.' It is impossible to believe 
that the many educated men in both houses of Congress will not gladly 
terminate this abuse, whenever the college authorities that are among 
their constituents shall generally request it." 

In his Fourth Annual Eeport President Pritchett indicated 
where the fundamental responsibility for honesty in the names 
and pretensions of educational institutions rests : 

"It is evident that the thousand institutions in the United States call- 
ing themselves colleges or universities cannot all find places as such in it. 



CO-OPERATION WITH COLLEGES 61 

It is incredible, for instance, that fifty-two colleges shall continue in the 
educational system of Ohio, or six Methodist colleges in that of Iowa. 
. . . Many institutions now calling themselves universities ought 
frankly to face the situation and become colleges, and many calling them- 
selves colleges ought to become academies. ... It is a condition 
precedent to such endeavor that we form the habit of calling things by 
their right names. . . . Some of these go-called universities have the 
means and the situation to be most useful as colleges, but they can never 
justify their existence as universities and they will demoralize the edu- 
cation of their respective states so long as they attempt it. It is the 
clear duty of the president and trustees of such an institution to place it 
both by name and by actual administration in the class to which it belongs 
and in which it could serve the cause of education eflBciently. There is 
perhaps no other situation which presents to a conscientious college presi- 
dent such difficulties as the effort tO' reduce the pretensions of his insti- 
tution or to give it a more modest name. He must contend with the 
swollen pride of the community inflated in large measure by the college's 
own action, with the undiscriminating loyalty of sentimental alumni, with 
the opposition of those who sit in secure places. iSTevertheless, this way 
lie ac-ademic honor, institutional honesty, and educational progress for 
those who have the courage and the tact and the patience to enter upon 
the task.'' 

It wouid carr}' us beyoud the sphere of this study to discuss the 
substance and limits of proper legislative control of colleges that 
are not state institutions. Eecklessness in granting charters has 
been the mother of injurious colleges and universities, as well as 
of injurious industrial and financial combinations. The 'New York 
law would supply many practical suggestions. 

There is no ground in Texas for hostile competition* between 
state and local and endowed institutions. Amity and sympathy 



*In m.ost of the states such competition is disappearing, though evil 
consequences of the past still remain in some of them. President 
Pritchett has said: "Perhaps there is no state in the Union in which 
the unlimited competition between denominational, state, and local insti- 
tutions has so fully done its perfect work as in Ohio. All forms of 
politics and religion abound within its borders. There is a tradition 
that any twig of doctrine transplanted to the Western Roserve will 



63 CO-OPERATION WITH COLLEGES 

prevail; and the systematic co-operation, which it is the pur- 
pose of these paragraphs to stimulate, has been cordially begun. 
It may be serviceable, however, to state distinctly some of the rea- 
sons for some desirable methods of such co-operation. 

Every strong state university must sooner or later face the duty 
of deciding which of the many colleges in its State shall re- 
ceive its direct and open co-operation, and which shall be allowed 
to go their way without such endorsement. Dr. Babcock, in a 
paper on "Relations of the State University to the Colleges of the 
State,*' describes the general situation as follows : 

"Hitherto the state university has not been in a position to dis- 
criminate very carefully, certainly not very positively and openly, in 
favor of institutions which are sturdy, well endowed, and loyal to good 
educational ideals. One state university, for example, has a scholarship 
for one graduate from each degree-granting institution within the state, 
assuming that the students who thus undertake graduate work at the 
university will all be substantially equal in preparation. This assump- 
tion is not justified by the facts; the university authorities know per- 
fectly well that there is a wide difference in conditions and scholarship 
in the various institutions, and that these differences are reflected in 
the training of the students accredited. 

"This easy-going acceptance of unequal degrees of different institu- 
tions is bound to pass away. Greater frankness and not less sympathy 
will be demanded from the state universities. With ten, twenty, or 
thirty colleges in the state, the university should make public recogni- 
tion of the merits of the worthy, though it would not be necessary to speak 
equally frankly of the deficiencies of the weak or unworthy. Steps in 
this direction have been taken in several states. The University of Wis- 
consin has announced in its catalog a scheme of co-ordination of the 
work of certain colleges with the work of the university, so that a 



flourish like a green bay tree. However that may be, it is certainly 
true that Ohio is the most be-colleged state in the Union. Over fifty 
institutions have been chartered by that generous commonwealth, with 
power to confer the learned and professional degrees; and I am told 
that a man can get more kinds of college degrees in Ohio for less money 
than in any other region, unless it be in Chicago, 111., or Washing- 
ton, D. C." 



CO-OPERATION WITH COLLEGES 63 

student at the end of two years may transfer from the college to the 
university without loss of time or credits. 

"Such a policy of discrimination requires courage, patience, tact, and 
frankness on the part of the college, as well as on the part of the 
universities; but in the long run the colleges so co-operating will gain 
greatly. Some of those who choose to go their way without co-opera- 
tion will inevitably disappear through death or by combination with 
other institutions; some will undertake only two years of college work. 
While the university cannot afford to assume the function of execu- 
tioner of the weak, it can afford and should afford to announce definite 
alliance with efficient colleges, recognize their work, and assist them in 
doing it with ever progressively better results. I am not pleading for 
the colleges as such, but rather for the great mass of students who are 
now seeking college education. 

"It would be a great gain to the university, to the colleges, and to 
students, if the university could perfect arrangements with the colleges 
that might say to students just graduating from the high school, 'Go to 
college A, or college B, whose curriculum, faculty, and equipment are 
satisfactory to us; do two, or three, or four years' work there; then 
come, if you will, to the university for advanced, or graduate, or pro- 
fessional work. I believe that one gain to the college in this process 
would be an increase in the number of students who remain at the col- 
lege for four years, instead of dropping out at the end of two years; 
and the peculiar influence which the smaller college is supposed to exert 
upon the character of its students would be given opportunity to do its 
perfect work. 

"I believe that one of the most serious wastes in the present admin- 
istration of large state universities is through inadequate provision for 
the care and direction of freshmen and sophomores. The great institu- 
tions need to pass a self-denying ordinance that they will seek, not more 
freshmen, but fewer, that they will receive only so many as their resources 
of men and space will enable them to teach thoroughly and inspir- 
ingly. If the state university can go so far as this, ... it will 
be . . . relieved of pressure upon its resources, . . . and can 
energize its advanced work and make it dominated by a real university 
spirit. . . . 

"Most state universities have demonstrated the value of a system of 
accredited high schools for preparing students for the university. I 
am confident that the development of a group of smaller colleges between 



64 CO-OPERATIOX WITH COLLEGES 

the high schools and the upper-class or professional work of the univer- 
sity would in many states bring relief to the university, enlargement of 
beneficent influence to the college, a well directed education to the stu- 
dent, and economy to the whole higher educational system of that state." 

Dean Birge of Wisconsin agrees with Dr. Babcock in recognizino- 
the same trouble, and the ITniversity of Wisconsin and the best 
colleges in that State are now co-operating in the way which he 
points ont as leading to the best remedy or palliative for the trou- 
ble. The following statement by Dean Birge indicates at least a 
partial ca.iise of the trouble. He says: 

•'•'I don't know any state university with five thousand students that 
is striving for seven thousand. If there is anything that keeps us poor 
and makes us unhappy, it is the great number of low gra,dc students 
we are obliged to accept. I have never known a year at the University of 
^Yisconsin, and my recollection goes back forty years, when we have 
not had more students than we could fairly educate Avith the money we 
Jaave had. 

"It is a situation into which we have been pushed by pressure from the 
secondary schools; and I think our experience has been duplicated in many 
other state universities. We have recently enlarged, at great expense, the 
number of courses for which we will accept students. We have done this, 
not because we wanted the students, but in response to the demands of 
the representatives of the secondary schools. The high schools have ac- 
commodated their tuition very largely to those who never expect to go 
beyond, and who have reached the limit, or passed the limit, of their 
profitable study of books. As a consequence, students come to us who 
have not been handled in a vigorous way and have not received any 
adequate intellectual training. That is the fundamental trouble that 
confronts us." 

President Pritchett in his Fourth Annual lieport makes the 
same diagnosis as Dr. Babcock and Dean Birge : 

■"The state universities represent a wide range of educational equip- 
ment and of educational standards. Xevertheless while some of them are 
still weak, all have set before themselves the ideal of a strong institu- 
tion crowning the state system of education with true college standards 
of admission and of scholarship. Among the agricultural and mechani- 



CO-OPERATION WITH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES 65 

cal colleges, however, it is almost impossible to recognize any such com- 
mon purpose. ... A feature characteristic of both the state univer- 
sities and the state colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts is the 
oversupply of students. No one can study these large institutions with- 
out realizing that even the strongest and best of them are today ham- 
pered by the presence of more students than they can really care for, and 
that their efficiency is also diminished by the fact that a considerable 
proportion of students are admitted to nearly all of them who are not 
really ready for college." 

The University of Texas has now over two thousand students 
for the regular term of enrollment — half of the number in the 
resourceful University of Wisconsin. There are clear indications 
of tendencies to extraordinary increase of the number of students 
in the near future. It, therefore, behooves the University of Texas 
to ponder well this question, remembering that prevention is better 
than cure. 

Co-operation tuith Theological Seminaries 

Theological seminaries are offered a method of co-operation with 
great universities that presents extraordinary advantages to the 
seminaries, and has proved to be acceptable to the universities. If 
the churches would locate their theological seminaries in prox- 
imity to the university campus, each seminary would be relieved of 
the cost of instruction in academic branches, and could devote all 
its resources to the distinctive work of its theological school. The 
quality and force of the theological instruction could be vastly 
improved, and the academic work would be done better than is 
possible in an isolated seminary hampered by narrow means — in- 
sufficient for the double task. The students of the seminary would 
profit both ways. 

The university, on its part, would have the satisfaction of en- 
lightening and strengthening by its services a class of students 
whose influence is destined to be further reaching than that of 
most men — thus fulfilling the university's chief object and aspira- 
tion. In so far as the seminary courses of instruction meet high 



66 CO-OPERATION WITH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES 

standards of scholarship and vigor, the university should make 
many of them acceptable for credits in its own appropriate depart- 
ments — history, language, philosophy, for instance. 

The ideal co-operation thus briefly sketched has been realized 
between a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church and the 
University of Texas. There is a group of four or five theological 
schools around the University of California, recently moved thither 
or newly established there, who co-operate with each other as well as 
with the university and announce that they find it "wise economy to 
use these university courses rather than to provide them ourselves at 
great expense." A seminary of the Christian Church has been 
built adjacent to the campus of the University of Oregon, and 
interchange of students and credits has been established. Close 
to the University of Pennsylvania are three theological semina- 
ries, combination courses in university and seminary being en- 
couraged from both sides. Eeciprocal relations have developed 
between the University of Cincinnati and two nearby theological 
schools. Tliree or four theological institutions have such rela- 
tions with Harvard University. In New York City many theo- 
logical seminaries and universities cherish m^utual relations. 

If several large denominations would adopt the policy here rec- 
ommended, a great and difficult problem would be solved. There 
is serious ground for President Van Hise^s contention, that "theol- 
ogy should be taught in part in the universities, even in the state 
universities.'^ It is true, as he says, that, "the universities cannot 
afford to ignore the science that gives unity to the w^orld and life, 
and defines the nature of rational faith." But state universities 
in this country cannot meet his demand. It is not a theory, but 
a condition. But there is no prejudice on the part of the gen- 
eral public against thorough and cordial co-operation between a 
state imiversity and a theological seminary situated in the same 
locality. A very generally desired end would be gained in a legiti- 
mate and dignified manner, well adapted — instead of repugnant — 
to the predilections of the American people. The only obstacle 



INDIVIDUAL CO-OPERATION 67 

rests in the inertia or prejudices of the denominations themselves. 
But the spirit of the times is working in favor of this co-operative 
method: denominational prejudices are everywhere breaking down. 
Many denominations are establishing at many state universities 
(e. g., California, Kansas, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, etc.) halls 
or houses for the care and religious stimulation of university stu- 
dents afBliated with their churches. Their theological seminaries 
will follow. 

Co-operation by Individual Citizens 

It may be questioned whether generous men of wealth would 
use their means wisely by contributing to a state educational in- 
stitution in the way of endowment for general purposes. It is 
probably better for the people that they should pay for the regular 
maintenance of any public enterprise vital to their own welfare. 
It is possible that a state university, or agricultural college, favored 
by large private endowment for general purposes, would be more 
poorly supported in the long run than if it had never received such 
a donation. On the other hand, a good building or land for build- 
ings would be helpful. But there are always some needs of a 
sort that legislatures are prone to disregard or deny, to which a 
private gift could be most usefully applied; for instance, the full 
endowment of a chair in a subject the importance of which the 
general public does not appreciate; or, a building erected to be a 
model of beauty and utility, and for a purpose likely to be neg- 
lected by the dispensers of public funds. There is a particular 
example of the kind last mentioned which has some features of 
especial interest. With it I shall conclude the suggestions offered 
in this chapter. 

In a recent issue of Science (June 26, 1912) Dr. Udden, of the 
University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, published a 
striking account of museum buildings in the United States. He 
found from the best available data that there are sixty-five build- 
ings devoted to natural history museums in this countr}^, and that 
the cost of the buildings had been $37,232,000. He prepared a 



68 INDIVIDUAL CO-OPERATION 

map, as here printed, to show graphically the location of all the 
museum buildings, and the startling vacuum in the Southwest. 
The following table gives some of the facts reported by Dr. Udden : 

Number of Cost of 

Groups of States Museums Buildings 

Six Middle States 16 $17,478,000 

Fifteen N. Central States 16 8,466,000 

District of Columbia 2 4,400,000 

Six New England States 19 4,910,000 

Eleven Mountain and Pacific States 10 1,836,000 

Two Southern States 2 142,000 

40 States and D. C 65 $37,232,000 

It was shown that not less than 21 of these museum buildings 
were built during the decade 1900-1909; that 36 of them^ costing 
$18,958,000, had been private donations; and that 15 of them, 
costing $1,382,000, belonged to universities. 

Dr. Udden's concluding remarks present very persuasively the 
suggestion I wish to submit. He says in part: ^'It is evident that 
the growth of our museums is largely parallel with the growth of 
our national wealth and with the progress of higher education in 
our own country. It is during the last fifty years that American 
universities have begun to provide adequate facilities for higher 
education of the American youth. . . . 

"The irregularities in the series show that it does not repre- 
sent the activities of any great number of individuals. The serie? 
is clearly an expression of a few potent factors, acting through the 
medium of exceptional men. ... It requires a prophet^s in- 
stincts and faith to make enormous investments looking to the 
awakening of living truths in the human intellect by the collec- 
tion and care of what the average man would scorn as ^dry bones.' 

"The map indicates roughly the geographic distribution and 
the course of westward travel of the scientific mind of our nation. 
It has blazed a trail from Boston via New York and Philadelphia, 
to San Francisco. It shows also the lingering effects of the world's 



MUSEUMS 



69 




70 INDIVIDUAL CO-OPERATION 

most cruel war. Museum,, are the creations of intellect and 
wealth. Our great civil war destroyed the wealth of the south. 
Hence the insignificant sum spent for museums in the south. 

"A large vacant area appears in the southwest. The straight 
lines on the map, radiating from a point in the south part of this 
space, show the shortest distances to the nearest museums, where a 
naturalist in this region can take his collection for study. The 
indices at the proximal ends of these lines point to a place where 
the great museum of the southwest should be reared, a modem 
temple of science on the Mediterranean of the Occident. Here is 
an exceptional opportunity for the exceptional man. Will he 
see it r 



This Part I was published in advance 
sheets in December, 1912. See a note 
at the end of the volume on some sub- 
sequent events bearing upon the subject 
of Part I. 



PART II 
INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION 

I. PEELIMINARY 

The preceding part of this study, dealing with features of or- 
ganization for which the state government is responsible, has had 
special reference to the State of Texas. On this second part, 
treating of internal organization and administration, no such 
limitation was imposed by practical considerations; and the sub- 
ject is one that is most fittingly treated without allusion to in- 
dividual institutions, unless such particularity be required for 
■clearness. No special reference to the Texas institutions, there- 
fore, is to be understood in the discussion of policies and prac- 
tices offered in this division of the stud}^, unless the reference 
is explicit. 

Internal Effects of Precarious Support 

Internal organization and administration build upon the struc- 
tural foundation fixed by the state government. The two most 
important features of that foundation for a state institution of 
higher education have been shown to be the creation of a gov- 
erning body in the way calculated to secure the most competent 
and faithful executors of the State's general purpose, and the 
establishment of an adequate and secure financial basis. 

If those conditions are secured, many evil consequences of their 
absence, commonly assigned to other causes, will disappear, thereby 
showing the true origin. The main causes of wasteful duplication 
and injurious rivalry, for instance, spring from precarious sup- 
port, and do not inhere in the very existence of two institutions. 
If the State's support depends entirely upon appropriations by 
successive legislatures, the consequences of rivalry will, indeed, 
be ruinous. Also, if an established and definitely apportioned 



72 EFFECTS OF PRECARIOUS SUPPORT 

Ux is ins-afficient for ordinary maintenance, rivalry will be m- 
j 11 r ions in proportion to the deficiency. 

The worst consequences are not those manifested in the antag- 
onisms tliat are cansing open shame and disaster in several 
States. The deep injury is internal, and not comprehended by 
those who do not understand the inside of such affairs. The 
precarious support creates tendencies whereby, in the long run. 
governing boards and administrators become so engrossed in schem- 
ing for appropiiations, that educational and scientific values are 
lost sight of, or are obscured, and all things (work and persons) 
are estimated according to advertising values. Powerful teachings 
vigorous research, wisdom and courage in counsel come to be less 
and le^s appreciated. Prominence, authority, top salaries go to 
the men who supph^, either by their own initiative or from the 
catchy nature of their specialties, the most newspaper notices, or 
the most ^pul? with the legislature, or the most popular recogni- 
tion. Gradually the whole morale is debased; the best and strong- 
est men tend to leave; and at last the faculty settles down under 
the dominance of its least worthy members. The wisdom and 
magnanimity of individuals may modify temporarily the effects 
of the general tendency; but the characteristic result has been 
soberly and precisely described. Experience in. the United States 
is rife with wretched examples, usually involving a state university 
and a state agricultural college. 

There are two genuine remedies. Either would instantly remove 
the fundamental cause of some evil symptoms. Troubles induced 
entirely by that cause would be gradually cured, and manifold ills 
aggravated by it would be abated. 

The remedy commonly advocated is the consolidation of the 
two troubled and troublesome institutions, by abolishing the agri- 
cultural college and instituting (or enlarging) a department or 
college of agriculture in the university. It is probable that the 
majority of the administrators of state universities in this country 
would advise the absorption of every state agricultural college by 
the university of the State, not only as an expedient in case of 



REMEDIES 73 

trouble, but as theoretically the best plan. In Europe it is not 
deemed best to put the technical schools in the universities. The 
prevailing opinion of administrators in this country is largely 
held without comparison with any alternative remedy for the 
crying evils manifested wherever rivalry in the face of precarious 
support exists. It is remarkable that the alternative remedy has 
never suggested itself to most advocates of consolidation. 

The other remedy is a state tax, definitely apportioned by the 
law establishing the tax, and adequate to the ordinary support 
of the institutions concerned. Of course, each institution would 
have to present from time to time some special need to the leg- 
islature; but the ground of constant and injurious rivalry would 
be removed almost as surely as it would be by consolidation if the 
tax be sufficient for regular needs. Consolidation without a tax for 
maintenance is incomparably less advantageous than a properly 
apportioned tax, because the paralyzing element of uncertainty 
would continue in full force. A fair comparison of the two reme- 
dies must assume equivalent and equally stable financial support. 

In totally abolishing rivalry, it is not impossible that some ele- 
ments of good may be lost along with the injurious rivalry. Enor- 
mous size does not make an institution great. Efficiency is cer- 
tainly not proportional to size without limit. Efficiency puts limi- 
tations upon size even for industrial plants. Almost all analogies 
(including some uses of the word "efficiency^^) between educa- 
tional work and manufacturing are grossly misleading, and many 
of them are pernicious ; but as centralization seems to be peculiarly 
fascinating for those prone to such analogies, it is not amiss to 
point out that limitations upon advantageous size exist in the 
industrial as well as in the educational sphere. 

More directly to the point is the fact that, whereas much has 
been said about the advantages of a imiversity atmosphere for 
students of agriculture and the mechanic arts, a great deal might 
be said of possible disadvantages for the higher learning, both 
scientific and philosophical, if undergraduate departments are mul- 



74 CO-OPERATION WITH COLLEGES 

tiplied to include too much elementary instruction in so-called 
utilitarian or practical studies. Various evils might grow from 
such a condition. It might lead to a neglect and discouragement 
of the college of arts and sciences, both in faculty counsels and in 
administrative measures. If any deep cleavage resulted in the 
general faculty, it would fall under the sway of members adroit to 
fish in muddied M^aters — one of the worst calamities that can 
befall a university. If the administrative policy settled down to 
endeavors to ingratiate the institution in popular favor by mere- 
tricious advertising of its "practical'' departments, all that is 
truly most useful would be obscured, and the essential means to 
good ends would be neglected. 

The time has come when it behooves the state university of 
any populous State to consider carefully the matter of co-opera- 
tion with colleges. That subject has been briefly treated in the 
first part of this study, and the views of Dr. Babcock, Dean Birge 
of Wisconsin, and President Pritchett, there presented, are 
here recalled. It is to be added in this connection that all 
potential universities* ought to devote very careful attention to 
developing graduate schools suitable to their resources of men and 
means and their respective localities. The great and fruitful 
services of the German universities to the German nation are 
often described to excite appreciation of an American university, 
in ignorance of the fact that it is only the graduate department 
of the American university that does or attempts to do the charac- 
teristic work of a German university. Every state university 
undoubtedly ought to offer facilities for continuing the study of 
agriculture after graduation from an agricultural college; but 
more than the mere vote of contemporary university presidents 
is requisite to prove that every state university should include the 
agricultural college of its State. 



* Other so-called universities ought to cease from deceptive pretensions 
by making their names and administration fit the true condition, and thus 
become useful colleges instead of counterfeit universities. 



DIFFICULTIES IN CONSOLIDATION 75 

In short, the more profoundly and clearly one understands all 
sides of the question and its distant connections, the less 'cock 
sure' he will he which of the two possible remedies for the evi's 
engendered by the precarious support of two state institutions is 

heore .cally the best. But the margin of abstract preferability, 
let It he as it may, is probably negligible in comparison with the 
weight that belongs to the extraneous conditions defining each 
concrete case. The question, therefore, need not be decided ab- 
stractly. The practical question in undertaking to remedy those 
evils m any particular case, resolves itself into the comparative 

easibihty of a tax apportioned in fixed parts sufficient f'r regu^ 
lar needs, or of consolidation with an adequate tax for the one 
institution. 

If the institutions suffering from the cumulative effects ol pre- 
carious support have attained great size and deeply rooted his- 
toncal associations, it ought to be possible, through a supreme 
effort on the part of magnanimous counsellors, to secure their 
agreement to a proper apportionment of an adequate state tax 
and their united support of the legislative program necessary for 
the establishment of such a tax. But if inveterate animosities, 
fixed bias of public opinion, or legislative confusion, offer insur- 
mountable obstacles to a suitably apportioned tax, and if con- 
solidation with stable support appears to be obtainable, similar 
effort may be wisely exerted to apply the alternative remedy. The 
question of feasibility ought to be very carefully considered. Ad- 
ditional administrative difficulties must be met by the consolidated 
institution. Some of those difficulties have been indicated, others 
of a technical nature would arise. For instance, a paltry ten- 
dency to make all rules and regulations uniform for all depart- 
ments is springing up under far less trying conditions; ignor- 
ance, timidity, and indolence combine to prevent a proper differ- 
entiation for different departments, and lead to regulations which 
in their compromised uniformity fit none. Many indications of 
such incapacity to deal with growing size and complexity are ob- 



"^6 A NEEDED SERVICE 

vious to any competent observer. Yet it lies within the power 
of wise administration to prevent or to surmount such difficulties, 
whereas the evils of rivalry under precarious support are pra<3- 
tically inevitable. 

A central board of control, placed over subordinated governing 
boards, has been shown to be worse than inexpedient. Instead of 
curing the e\dls in question, such a board of control would ag- 
gravate them. That device is fundamentally erroneous. It is a 
false remedy, and will never under any circumstances, I venture 
to say, prove advantageous. 

A Needed Service 

Within the compass of the following chapters it will not be 
practicable to consider such details as the courses* of study, to be 
offered in any department, or the departments to be maintained in 



*Such terms are used in this study in accordance with the nomenclature 
adopted in 1909 and 1910 by the National Association of State Univer- 
sities in the United States of America, aS follows: 

"1. That the term department be restricted to the various subjects 
taught in the university; as for instance, the department of Latin, depart- 
ment of mathematics, department of physics, etc. 

"2. That the term course be restricted to the subdivisions of a subject; 
as for instance, course 1 in English. 

"3. That the term college be restricted to a part of the university, the 
standard of admission to which is the equivalent of that required by the 
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and which offers 
instruction leading to a first degree in arts, letters, or sciences. 

"4. That the term school be restricted to a part of the university, the 
standard of admission to which is not less than the equivalent of two 
years' work in the college, and which offers instruction of not less than 
two years duration leading to a technical or professional degree. 

"5. That the term group be restricted to a combination of related 
subjects. 

"6. That the term curriculum be restricted to a combination of courses 
leading to a degree. 

"7. That the term division be assigned a loose meaning to indicate 
groupings of the different branches of a university organization, or 
branches which do not adapt themselves to classification under the above 
terms; as for instance, extension division, graduate school, etc." 



A NEEDED SERVICE 77 

any school or college. The available space will be devoted to some 
general features of organization and administration that are funda- 
mental or most vital. No individual would be competent to treat 
expertly the inner sphere of every department. Indeed, the work 
of any one department would be most helpfully presented in a co- 
operative discussion by a number of experienced specialists whose 
attainments included, besides their expert skill, philosophical com- 
prehension of the place of their specialty in the whole body of 
the intellectual life of mankind, and of the best practical connec- 
tions for teaching purposes of their own with other departments. 
Of course, a program thus prepared would not fit the different 
resources of different institutions. It would not exactly fit any 
particular case; but, if ably prepared, it would be highly service- 
able. 

A most important service would be rendered by agencies able 
to secure competent co-operation, if they promptly took steps to 
have prepared and published ideal programs of courses for stand- 
ard departments and organized designs for the reciprocal rela- 
tions of such departments and their relations with the different 
schools of a comprehensive university. There could be no perma- 
nence for the details of such outlines; but truly constructive 
studies of those essential problems would be very useful. They 
would not only offer new and definite suggestions for good courses 
and correlations, but would lead to the discarding of many ill 
considered courses and to the correction of much ill arranged 
work. Rich and critical plans of a general character would have 
no tendency to induce deadening uniformity; on the contrary, 
they would encourage discriminating adaptations to particular 
conditions. Servile imitation of the practice (itself probably hap- 
hazard) of some prominent institution, and rash ventures of self- 
sufficiency would be equally restrained. The Association of Amer- 
ican Universities, the National Association of State Universities, 
and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 
would do a valuable work, if each of them undertook to provide a 



78 A NEEDED SERVICE 

series of such monographs. The ability for constructive thought 
is rare, and the conjunction of that ability and such an oppor- 
tunity for its suitable exercise is still rarer. The great agencies 
mentioned are in advantageous positions for finding and com- 
missioning men in each department who possess, in addition to 
expertness in that specialty, the philosophical attainments and 
constructive powers required for genuinely constructive work of 
such a nature. This fundamental matter has been abandoned 
hitherto sometimes to perfunctory decisions of the faculty, some- 
times to off-hand debates and adoptions by accidental majorities. 

The general problems of medical education, and the existing 
status of medical schools in the United States and Canada and 
in Europe, including some details concerning courses of instruc- 
tion, have already been treated in the epoch making reports 
of Mr. Abraham Flexner, issued by the Carnegie Foundation for 
the Advancement of Teaching, with valuable introductions by 
President Pritchett.* In a powerful address on "Medical Educa- 
tion in the South," delivered in March, 1912, before the American 
Medical Association, Pi-esident E. B. Craighead (under whose 
administration the medical school of the Tulane University of 
Louisiana made such notable advances, now President of the Uni- 
versity of Montana) indicated the widespread need for a more 
diligent study of Mr. Flexner^s 1910 report than it has yet re- 
ceived. "One may venture to doubt," he said, "whether one 
physician in ten, whether even any large part of the professors 
of our medical schools or members of health boards, ever made a 
careful study of this illuminating report on medical education, 
doubtless the ablest ever issued in this or in any other countrv. 
If any large part of the medical fraternity had read its cold, 
bare, merciless statements, would not they themselves have called 
for the reorganization of medical education ?" 



*Medical- Education in the United States and Canada, Bulletin Number 
Four, 1910; Medical Education in Europe, Bulletin Number Six, 1912. 



METHOD OF PRESENTATION 79 

Method of Presentation. 

The following chapters treat some important problems which 
appear to present serious difficulties to American universities and 
colleges. The essential nature and issues of each problem, as con- 
ceived by the writer, will be indicated, and policies and measures 
deemed to be appropriate will be suggested. The reader will 
judge the former according to his own experience and insight; 
the latter he must judge by his wisdom. The matters dealt with 
are of an order in which demonstration is not possible. In the 
main, the arguments necessarily appeal to judgments of the prac- 
tical reason, which constitute indeed a test of character but can 
not compel logical assent. 

Failure to discriminate spheres for demonstrative proof and 
spheres for wisdom in judgments, is a common cause of confused 
action. And it may be well to mention in this connection the 
more vulgar error of attempting to decide any question involving 
scientific or philosophical truth by a vote — whether the voting 
be by "authorities^^ or by a count of all noses. Of course, it be- 
hooves a man who ventures to offer counsel, to observe the va- 
rious practices of those engaged in the business considered, and 
to discuss all subjects of investigation with many whose posi- 
tions have offered opportunity for pertinent experience, and to read 
extensively the literature of the subjects. But when he presents 
the results of proper preparation in such matters as are here in 
question, he will do the best that can be done if the essential con- 
ditions are stated, and the attitude or course of action deemed 
most suitable is proposed. The grounds for every conclusion 
must be indicated (otherwise the question would not be fully pre- 
sented), but, in general, the reasons must stand upon their own 
merits independent of authority. The appeal is to principles, 
which the reader must be left to acknowledge or reject. In some 
particulars the proper ground for a wise conclusion may be the 
weight of expert opinion, and in them expert opinion should be 



80 METHOD OF PRESENTATION 

adduced and weighed; but no large and vital policy concerning 
the organization and administration of a nniveTsity is of such a 
nature. 

There are various technical questions with which college ad- 
ministration is concerned that could be genuinely answered by 
adequate statistics. Some important psychological facts, for in- 
stance, can be determined only by statistical methods. Frequent 
attempts, however, have been made in recent years to answer by 
statistics questions whose true answers are totally independent 
of the results offered in evidence, or of any other numerical facts. 
All facts are valuable in proper relations; but a fact is not the 
truth for a mind that does not comprehend its true relations. 
Statistical investigations could not supply more than superfluous 
support in the following discussions, and might obscure valid 
and sufficient grounds by appealing to doubtful facts or incon- 
clusive reasons. 

The limited space for the present study has been reserved for 
fundamental and vital matters which ought to be deeply pon- 
dered by every one who takes any part in the government or ad- 
ministration of an institution of higher education. Wise con- 
clusions are to be reached, and beneficial courses of action will be 
followed, only by those who frame by their own judgments a true 
scale of values and clear aims, and who choose means well adapted 
to good ends held constantly in view. 

One example must suffice, if any be needed, to illustrate the 
propriety of these remarks. Suppose some practice were con- 
demned on the ground that it tended to drive or keep out of the 
service of the institution teachers of great ability and high de- 
votion. If the fact of that tendency of the practice is clear, the 
argument is complete. Its premise — that the paramount obliga- 
tion of a teaching institution is to get and keep good teachers, is 
equally cogent by whomsoever stated. It is not a question of 
expert opinion. Still less is it a question of statistics. I do not 
strengthen the principle appreciably by quoting an expert who. 



METHOD OF PRESENTATION 81 

in speaking of the vision and endeavors of the Organization under 
whose auspices this study has been made, wrote: "I trust you 
will be able to make the conditions in your University favorable 
to the residence thereat of great men worthy of a great State. The 
standing of a university is determined by the eminence of its 
professors and by the freedom for learning and teaching given to 
these professors and to their students/^ That is the judgment of 
President Woodward of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 
But the question is not to be settled by authority. A man tuho 
does not see the principle for himself can not really understand 
its statement hy another. In short, it is a matter of character. 
As for statistics, they, alas, would disprove the principle, if 
they could impose at all. On all sides the principle appealed 
to is condemned by prevalent practice. No questionnaire 
is needed; actions speak louder than words. Statistically, 
buildings, are often held to be more important than teach- 
ers,— or popular applause of certain subjects of instruction, 
or the nominal designs of outspreading curricula. Surely it must 
be upon such grounds, and not because of great teachers, that 
some universities advertise ^^the highest educational facilities.^^ 
Persistent policies of the governing boards and administrators of 
many universities possessing ample means for better practices, 
manifestly deny our premise. One statistical result might, in- 
deed, agree with the principle which we prefer to let stand on 
its own luminous truth. The majority of ingenuous youth prob- 
ably do see its truth. At least, Mr. Cooper reports in his recent 
book. Why Go to College: "Of one hundred graduates whom 
I asked the question, ^What do you consider to be the most valu- 
able thing in your college course?' eighty-six said, substantially: 
Tersonal contact with a great teacher.' ^^ This is gratifying, 
though not surprising to those who know how many young men 
keep their native good sense unsophisticated by the example and 
precept of their elders. But the principle is not really strength- 
ened by such testimony. In the first place, if Mr. Cooper were 



83 METHOD OF PRESEJ^TTATIO^f 

to extend his inquiry to a thousand, his eighty-six per centum of 
enlightened answers would probably be much reduced, and cer- 
tainly so if he inquired of ten thousand. In short the truth of the 
matter, being quite independent of majority oninions, can neither 
be proved nor discredited by a vote. The truth would remain the 
same, if only six instead of eighty-six per centum of the young men 
had seen it. 

The quotations occurring in the discussions here presented are 
not offered as settling any point by authority. I have merely 
preferred to adopt the words of others whenever I have recalled 
(and could locate) an apposite statement of a matter the reader 
should consider, in any of the hundreds of books and articles 
that have been perused in order to extend as far as possible my 
previous experience and reflection. Many a brief remark, it may 
be added, is the outcome of an examination of much published 
material, or of consultations and observations obtained by trav- 
eling long distances. N'o ^source' or ^authority,' however, has 
been cited to give the air of deep ^research' supposed by some to 
be bestowed by that device. The aim has been to make a con- 
secutive and condensed discourse, impersonally unified, — to he 
impersonally judged. 

The inherent propriety of this method of presentation was once 
illustrated in a quaint comparison by a great thinker to whom 
physicists are today returning for some of the fundamental state- 
ments of their science: "If discussing a difficult problem," said 
Gallileo, "were like carrying a weight, then since several horses 
will carry more sacks of corn than one alone, I would agree that 
many reasoners avail more than one; but discoursing is like 
coursing, and not like carrying; and one barb by himself will 
run faster than a thousand Friesland horses." It would be a 
gross misunderstanding to regard such a presentation as dogmat- 
ically announcing egotistical judgments; on the contrary, the "one 
reasoner" the present writer has in view is the reader. As I have 
said, beneficial courses of action will be followed only by those 



METHOD OF PEESENTATION^ 83 

who frame by their own judgments a true scale of values and 
clear aims, and who choose means well adapted to good ends held 
constantly in view. 

It is also to be understood that the readers for whom the "dis- 
coursing'' here submitted is mainly intended, are persons who 
are undertaking in some capacity to shape the destiny of insti- 
tutions of higher education, — governors of States, legislators, mem- 
bers of commissions for investigation or for control, and the mem- 
bers of governing boards, the administrative officers, and the 
faculties of universities and colleges. Such men already know, or 
only by neglect of responsibility fail to know, the facts referred 
to; and the principles of true expediency, upon which courses 
of action may be chosen for dealing with the facts, necessarily 
stand on their own powers of appeal. The need for sincerity 
in all announcements does not appeal to the disingenuous; ex- 
cellence is not desired by admirers of uniformity; distinctions of 
worth are secretly hated by the leveler; the value of self-control 
does not restrain fanatics and petty despots from violating sa- 
cred rights of personality; and vindictive or cowardly egotism is 
blind to justice. By the lover of darkness light is not preferred. 
For such antagonisms there is no present help. But there must be 
many men who are unconsciously violating in educational affairs 
principles that they acknowledge abstractly. If they should read 
this book, they would see the relations of such principles to many 
injurious policies which they have thoughtlessly adopted or are 
<^upinely permitting. It is in the hope that it might find some 
readers among the men who assume legislative or professional re- 
sponsibility in the work of higher education, that the book 
is made. There are others, however, to whom the writer hopes 
it may also be serviceable. Interest in universities and colleges 
is widespread. Editorial writers readily praise almost anything 
proposed in the name of education. More discrimination would 
greatly enhance the value of this sincere cordiality. Especially, 
I have fondly hoped that some readers might be found among the 



84 METHOD OF PKESENTATION 

young men for whose instruction colleges and universities are 
maintained. University students are competent and advantage- 
ously situated to form, and ought to take thought to form en- 
lightened judgments concerning the features of college govern- 
ment and life and work that are tests of good organization and 
administration. It is of great importance to the commonwealth 
that the students of today should form sound judgments in such 
matters, in order that the influence of the full-grown men may 
be wisely exercised tomorrow. That our better universities and 
colleges (in spite of governmental abuses, errors of teachers, and 
foibles of the taught) are light-giving and strength-giving in- 
stitutions, is the belief in which these studies are submitted for 
such consideration as they may deserve. 



' II. THE aOVEENING BOARD 

The responsible authorities of the American state "university 
are its board of regents (or trustees)^ an executive officer of that 
board, and the faculty. The proper function of each should be 
determined from within, through long experience, guided by knowl- 
edge of the general principles applicable to the administration of 
any great and complex enterprise: for instance, the principle 
hodies should legislate, individuals execute. Beyond such broad 
distinctions the State should not attempt to circumscribe or di- 
rect by statutory provisions the activities of the institution's gov- 
ernmental agencies. 

This form of government has been evolved not arbitrarily, but 
to comport with practical conditions and with ideas and purposes 
of higher education that have been the outgrowth of the com- 
pounding of a new nation. The typical American university has 
come to consist of a college, professional schools, technical schools, 
graduate departments, divisions of research, and extension divi- 
sions, — naming its expanding spheres in the order of acquisition. 
Speaking of "The American university, late bom in fact though 
not in name,"^ President Mezes of the University of Texas thus 
describes some of the new ideals : 

"Within the last half century, or perhaps even within the last twenty- 
five years, there has arisen a new conception of the university as the 
head of the educational system of the whole people, not of a caste or class. 
The change is profound. The old ideals are not thrown away; the lawyer, 
the doctor, the teacher, may secure from the state university of today a 
wider and sounder training than ever in the past, and the most precious 
fruit and ambition of research is still the discovery of new truth. But 
to the work of the past is added now the training of leaders in almost 
all the lines of human activity. Ezra Cornell is said to have hoped that 
the new institution he was founding might be a place where anybody, man 
or woman, might learn to do anything that was worth doing. Out of the 
training of students in manifold pursuits on the campus came the idea 



86 EXPANDING PURPOSES 

that the university should carry its teaching to the eager among the people 
at home who could not lay aside their occupations for exclusive study. 
To this nohle conception was added the ideal of offering to the people the 
benefits of the skill, knowledge, and power accumulated in the faculty and 
buildings and collections of the university. The university should be in 
full truth the head of the State's educational system, not merely in the 
training of citizens, not merely in directing but in drawing out the good 
that is in the commonwealth as a whole, in the people, in all the people 
first, and in the land, too, with the aim ever to hand down to posterity 
a nobler people and a land better fitted to live in." 

The a/?-inckiding conception of a university's work and aims — 
voiced in sweeping phrases more in the West than in the East — 
requires, of course, many limitations. A university can not ever 
really hecome a place where anybody can learn to do anything worth 
doing. Some things should be left to distinct teaching insti- 
tutions, some must be left to other agencies. The vast majority 
of men and women cannot be immediately instructed by uni- 
versities. They are benefited indirectly; for instance, by the 
services of those who learn in universities to render many in- 
dispensable services, and through the advancement of knowledge 
and the consequent extension of human ability to utilize natural 
resources and forces and to resist nature's antagonisms. Pro- 
fessor E. D. Perry (in No. 6 of "MonogTaphs on Education in 
the United States," edited by Nicholas Murray Butler) remarks: 

"The brilliant history of Cornell University is chiefly due to the wisdom 
of the men who have seen what limitations should be put upon . . . 
the avowed purpose of Ezra Cornell: I would found an institution where 

any person may find instruction in any study. . . . The purpose of 

Leland Stanford, Jr., University is declared to be: To fit young persons 
for success in life. An admirable purpose, no doubt, but one which the 

university must share in common with many other institutions. . . . 

As a whole, American universities seem to be trying to do too many 
things, generally with an altogether inadequate equipment of instructors." 

The new idea may be stated less emotionally, but more simply 
and more analytically: It consists essentially in an expansion of 



THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 87 

tlio duties of institutions of higher education to include a dissem- 
ination of the results of science where they may be utilized in 
private life and industry, or applied to guide public enterprises 
and to protect the welfare of society. To the function and duties 
of achieving and transmitting knowledge, and, as it were, storing 
it in repositories of learning, there has thus been added an obli- 
gation to cause those stores to be utilized as widely as possible. 
For example, far more is now known in scientific ways about the 
cultivation and conservation of the soil and the breeding of plants 
and animals, than farmers will be led, within many years, to make 
use of; or, more is now known of preventive medicine and public 
hygiene than society will properly apply within lon^ years to 
come. And the aim is to offer all these services — the old and the 
new — free of cost to the recipients. 

It will become evident in any candid study of existing condi- 
tions that the pervading difficulty in the administration of such 
boundless schemes is to prevent the sacrifice of quality to quan- 
tity.* 'The greatest good to the greatest number^ is a valid maxim 
if proper emphasis be kept on the good; but if "good" be slurred 
and "number" emphasized, the number receiving may be great 
but that which is given is likely to be bad. An educational insti- 
tution should offer, in its proper sphere, as much good as it can^ 
and should call as many as it can serve therewith; but it is better 
to give bread to as many as your bread will supply, than to give 
stones or straw to any number — the more the worse. 

Beasons for the Essential Features of the American System. 

The complexity of the demands, and the unparalleled volume 
of public money put into the foundation and maintenance of 
American universities within the last thirty years, doubtless jus- 
tify a form of government unknown in the Old World. But the 

*Cf. President Bryan's statement on page 46 and the comment follow- 
ing it. 



88 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 

American plan was instituted before the present new ideas pre- 
vailed. It arose and spread, I believe, primarily and mainly for 
four reasons, two of them being of a general societal character, 
and two of a technical nature: (1) Under the political systems 
of the weak States forming the new federated nation, it was evi- 
dent that colleges should not be managed either by legislatures or 
by political officers. The board of trustees represents the state 
government for state universities. (2) The usual methods for 
the corporate management of other affairs were adopted for edu- 
cational foundations of every sort; and the plan^ begun with the 
so-called colleges and universities of earlier days, persisted when 
universities, in a more legitimate sense of the word, began to de- 
velop. But that persistence was not merely due to historical con- 
tinuity. There are two technical reasons not recognized by those 
who bewail the existence of regents and presidents and lament 
that our uEiversities are not governed like the German or English 
universities: (1) the inclusion of the last three or four years of 
the European secondary schools in the American university; 
and (2) the teacher in the American university is paid entirely 
by salary, and does not receive remuneration from the fees of 
voluntary students who select him in preference to competitors. 
If one will reflect on the conditions involved in the two facts 
last stated, he will see many consequences which would render the 
"democratic" government of the German university impracticable 
for the American institution. [See page 213.] 

In the chorus of complaints from members of our faculties 
which has filled current journals for several years, there have been 
pointed out indeed many abuses perpetrated by presidents and 
by regents; but the majority of the compainants fail to take into 
account the conditions that justify the autonomy of the German 
faculties. If the American university were dealing mainly with 
what we term post-graduate work, manned by scholars who met 
the professional competition of their colleagues disdaining any 
compulsion upon students to attend their own instead of another's 



A SUGGESTION OF CAUTION 



89 



lectures, and receiving a large part of their remuneration from 
the fees of voluntary students, — thm it might be admitted that 
there need be no regents and president to assist such a fa<iulty in 
governing the institution. But one cannot have his cake 
and eat it; and I would offer a suggestion of caution 
to those who seek to abolish the present plan of govern- 
ment. We never hear longings for the French system; 
yet, if the would-be destroyers of the American plan should pre- 
vail, I believe it would lead to the French system, — an auto- 
cratic governmental bureaucracy directing everything to minute 
details, a martinet, ^red tape' civil service, — and the departui-e 
of the best men of science from the state universities to academies 
and private activities,* or to the endowed universities who would 
stand against the change. How would the American professors 
like to get both their first places and subsequent advancements 
by competitive examinations? How would they like to be as- 
signed to teach anything, anywhere, under the supposition that 
one who has passed the great examination of the minister of 
education is qualified to teach everything the universities have 
any business with? But such has been the French system, since 
extreme notions, such as Eousseau's ''contrat social/' spawned 
among a people in whom the races of Southern Europe predomi- 
nated. Perhaps it is from such developments that university re- 
gents and presidents preserve our higher education. Would it 
not be better to strive to lead them to correct certain errors of 
their ways, than to try to abolish them? 

I do not know of any one else who has called attention to the 
risk I have indicated, but it seems to me worthy of consideration. 
Consider it in connection with two prevailing tendencies — the 
downward shifting of the plane of greatest political power in the 



*A few of the great scholars and scientific investigators, members of the 
academies of the Institut de France, are loosely connected with the College 
de France or with the Sorlonrve, — merely giving public lectures that any 
one may attend, not regular teachers of the students. 



90 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 

body politic^ and the predominance in immigration and birth rate 
in this country of a swarthy South-European proletariat. Eeflect 
that it has been peoples led and inspired by the white skinned 
(more or less blue eyed) races of Northern and Central Europe 
who have mainly developed the science of the Occident and given 
love of freedom and individual responsibility to the Western World. 
All sorts of minds develop in nearly every race, and I do not 
mean to put too much biological significance into human history; 
but the influences referred to are real whether their causes be 
genetic or environmental. If masses prone to admire uniformity 
and approve regimentation, with little respc-ct for individuality, 
impatient of processes of growth^ and without restraint in estab- 
lishing as fixed dogmas in State or Church the passions of the 
moment^ should gain ascendency, — what then? Might we not 
expect to see popular ideas recklessly imposed by law in every 
sphere? If they tamper with the government of educational 
institutions, will they not substitute a code of minute mechani- 
cal regulations administered by political officials? The advent 
of some such things is acclaimed by many who, out of the other 
side of their mouths, uphold contradictory aims and desires. The 
question at bottom is a matter of choice, of taste, not to be set- 
tled by demonstrative argument; but one ought not to pigeon- 
hole in his mind contradictory opinions. He may like a me- 
chanical, civil-service administration of higher education; but let 
him know that such a regime is like the night in which all cows 
are black. That fiction, and denial of reality, seems admirable 
to many, but it ought not to be countenanced by any man who 
claims to desire for himself and all men knowledge of the truth 
in the light of day. 

Speaking of the American plan of governing universities, Com- 
missioner Draper in 1905 at the National Conference of College 
and University Trustees, said: "It is neither a mistake nor a 
wrong. It is neither an accident nor an impulse; it is a growth, 
the deliberate product of conditions, of means, and of thought. 



NATURE OF THE BOARD's CONTROL 91 

It is a great combination of material resources and moral forces. 
. , . Its usefulness depends upon giving the management both 
moral sense and worldly Icnmuledge. . . . Tl-Qstees, as the rep- 
resentatives of the founders or of the State, are practically, if not 
altogether, unknown to foreign universities. Those universities 
are managed directly by the faculties, or by the government, or by 
both. The introduction of trustee management into American 
"universities has resulted necessarily from their more democratic 
character [oiigin], from their different manner of support, from 
their independence of [the state] government, and from the dif- 
ference between the political systems and popular purposes in the 
New World and the Old.^' 

There need be no doubt, then, in the minds of the regents of any 
American college or university that they are called to discharge a 
useful and important function. As Commissioner Draper says: 
"The trustees of a university are charged by law, either statu- 
tory or judge-made, or by widely acknowledged usage, with that 
general oversight and that legislative direction which will assure 
the true execution of a trust. . . . This is a heavy burden. 
It must be assumed that it is given to picked men who are spe- 
cially able to bear it; who would not give their time to it for 
money compensation, but are happy in doing it for the sake of 
promoting the best and noblest things." It is vulgarly doubted 
that such men exist; but the removal of such doubts is one of 
the highest services of true universities to the commonwealth. 
I have underscored the words of Dr. Draper that suggest the 
vitally important principles. When powers are based upon and 
exercised in accordance with valid principles the worst troubles 
of organization and administration disappear. 

Proper Nature of the Board's Control 

The fundamental principle that should determine the nature 
of the control exercised by the governing board, is that the control 
should be legislative. AU power, indeed, subject only to the law 



92 NATURE OF THE BOARD'S CONTROL 

of the land, vests in the hoard of regents, but grave and extraor- 
dinary must be the emergency that could justify the assumption 
of any power or function that has been properly committed to 
its executive officer or properly belongs to the faculty. The indi- 
vidual member of the board has no official power whatever and 
should never attempt to exercise any, unless some special author- 
ity has been expressly delegated to him by a recorded action of 
the board. Everything the board does must be done in session, 
to stand as recorded (approved and attested) in a permanent 
record. 

Much confused thought and speech, and consequent injurious 
action, would be obviated if the precise meanings of the words 
governing and executive were understood and kept in mind by 
those who undertake to discuss the organization of universities. 
"Govern" means to regulate by authority. From an internal point 
of view the board of trustees should always be, and be spoken of 
as, a governing not an executive board. From the point of view 
of the state legislature the same board is, and might without im- 
propriety be termed, an executive board; but the function of ex- 
ecuting (i. e., following out) the laws enacted by the legislature 
is so implicit and self-evident, that the board^s more character- 
istic inner relation in the institution ought to determine its des^ 
ignation. The laws of the state legislature ought to be only for 
the establishment of the institution and provisions of a most gen- 
eral character: subject to those, the supreme government of the 
university is committed to the board of regents. Hence the board, 
is substantially a governing board: and its government must be 
by means of its orderly legislation (never by the dictation of its 
individual members), else it will be, literally and in the full 
sense of the word, a lawless government. If, within the institution, 
the board conceives itself to be, or undertakes to be, executive for 
its own ordinances, disorganization and endless damage has al- 
ways followed. It is therefore no mere solecism, discreditable as 
that would be, when university men speak of their "executive 



MISUSED WORDS 93 

board/^ By so doing they fairly *^put it into the head' of the 
boiard to do the things of which they complain so bitterly. If 
greater interests were not involved, they might not unjustly be 
derided for the natural consequences of their own ignorance or 
carelessness. It is puerile to regard such vital errors of thought 
and language as mere solecisms, interesting only to grammarians. 
They have been veritable fountains of error throughout the his- 
tory of mankind in the most practical affairs. Uninformed and 
careless talkers would do well to read Lord Verulam's present- 
ment of these "idols of the market/' as he calls them, which they 
may find in ])oth his Advancement of Learning and his Novum 
Organum* 



*In the Fifth Book of his Advancement of Learning and in the First 
Book of his Novum Organum, Bacon shows how false and inapt uses of 
words are a main hindrance in the "interpretation of nature and the 
Empire of man." "The physical treatment [of things and their conditions] 
we have allotted to primary philosophy, but their logical treatment is 
what we here call the confutation of interpretation. And this we take for 
a sound and excellent part of learning, as general and common notions, 
unless accurately and judiciously distinguished from their origin, are apt 
to mix themselves in all disputes, so as strangely to cloud and darken 
the light of the question: for equivocations and wrong acceptations of 
words are the sophisms of sophisms." This doctrine's "true use is redar- 
gution and caution about the employing of words." False prejudices, or 
"idols," are set up in the mind ( 1 ) by the nature of mankind — idols of 
the tribe, ( 2 ) by the nature and experience of each individual — idols of 
the den, (3) by misused and imperfectly defined words — idols of the 
rnurket, and (4) by erroneous theories, imbibed in false teaching — idols 
of the theatre. These, says Francis Bacon, "are the deepest fallacies of 
the human mind; for they do not deceive in particulars, as the rest 
[errors of deduction and induction], by clouding and ensnaring the judg- 
ment; but from a corrupt predisposition of the mind, which distorts and 
infects all the anticipations of the understanding." "The false notions 
which have already preoccupied the understanding, . . . not only so 
beset men's minds that they become difficult of access, but even when 
access is obtained will again meet and trouble us in the instauration of 
the sciences, unless mankind when forewarned guard themselves with all 
possible care against them." The idols of the market, he declares, are the 
most troublesome of all — "give the greatest disturbance." "Words and 
names insinuate themselves into the understanding." It is difficult "to 
remedy the mischief ... to correct the wrong acceptation of words 



94 EXECUTIVE AGENT 

The "chief executive" of a "university sometimes manifests a 
need to consider the meaning of that title from the opposite angle. 
It seems evident that the presidents of some -universities have never 
paused to think what the word executive means. They use it 
frequently, and with a capital B; but I have read ^after^ some 
of them in contexts that admit only such meaning, in their minds, 
as ruler or even dictator. But ex-sequi is to follow out, and an 
executive officer, as such, is one who is to follow out to the end, 
or cause to be followed out, laws or ordinances given to and im- 
posed upon him by some legislative authority. The president 
of a university has another essential function of leadership — 
based on his wisdom and the weight of his counsel, but that is 
entirely aside from and additional to his executive function. 
As an executive, he is to execute and can properly enforce only the 
ordinances decreed by the board of regents or the faculty. 

The body legislates, but individuals must execute. A board 
must have an executive agent. The immense and complex activi- 
ties of the typical American university create a practical ne- 
cessity for one chief executive officer of the hoard, to be the ad- 
ministrative head of the institution. Subordinate administra- 
tive officers may be needed according to circumstances, always in- 
cluding a manager of certain business affairs. The main work, 
for the promotion of which regents and president were called 
into being, is performed by the faculty. It is coming to appear 



. . . to prevent the seducing incantation of names." "There arises 
from a bad and inapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the 
mind. . . . Words force the understanding, throw everything into con- 
fusion, and lead mankind into vain and innumerable controversies and 
fallacies." 

Ruskin, in whose writings errors imposed by words are continually 
pointed out with astonishing force, makes the following general comment: 
"There are masked words abroad which everybody uses, and most will also 
fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that or the 
other. There were never creatures of prey so mischievous, never diploma- 
tists so cunning, never poisons so deadly, as these masked words; they are 
the unjust stewards of men's ideas." 



NATURE OF THE BOARD's CONTROL 95 

more and more clearly that if the faculty is (or is to become) in its 
constituent members what a university faculty ought to be, the fac- 
ulty should be recognized (even though the law does not do so) as a 
body co-ordinate with, not subordinate to, the board of trustees. 
Evidently to the faculty should be assigned authority for the 
management of all teaching and all work for the advancement and 
dissemination of knowledge undertaken in official capacity. In 
the last statement the term "teaching'^ includes all educational 
requirements and the disciplinary control of students. 

Following chapters will adduce cumulative reasons for such an 
organization as is here suggested. At this point, I merely add 
that a general policy of non-interference with inherent respon- 
sibility and its properly commensurate authority, or with dele- 
gated powers, should be followed. I do not mean that any mem- 
ber of the entire organization should be restrained from construc- 
tive thought or counsel; the spontaneous co-operation of all parts 
is a vital characteristic of successful organization.* But it is 
of most far reaching importance that things be done through 
proper agencies. For instance, if there were to arise in the 
counsels of the members of the governing board a criticism of 
present arrangements or an idea of some new undertaking in edu- 
cational work, which, after careful consideration, seemed to be 
valuable, it would be absurd to keep silent. But the board ought 
not to formulate any such matter and issue it as an edict; the pro- 
posal should be sent to the faculty with a request that it be con- 
sidered, and, if approved, that an ordinance be formulated and 
enacted. Dean Bessey, speaking as trustee of Doane College, after 
explaining from his ripe experience the wisdom of such organiza- 
tion, added: "I have, alas, known, of cases where the trustees 
did not wait for faculty action, but themselves formulated the 
plan independently of the faculty. I cannot too strongly condemn 
such action; and while some faculties are no doubt too slow and 



*See page 2. 



96 RELATION TO THE PRESIDENT 

conservative [said in 1905], yet in the end the trustees would 
have done hetter to have requested previous consideration by the 
teaching body.*^ 

Inasmuch as the power and the responsibility for the appropria- 
tion of money is in the board of regents, it follows that the de- 
cisive action, even in many educational affairs, necessarily rests 
with that board. By appropriating or withholding money the 
regents ultimately control every matter requiring considerable 
expenditure, — not in detail, but as to whether or not the enter- 
prise is to be undertaken. It would help greatly to clear think- 
ing and wholesome feeling if this fact were always borne in mind. 
Dr. Bessey states the condition and an appropriate principle of 
action as follows: 

"In all cases where questions of policy are concerned ultimately involv- 
ing the expenditure of money, it is manifest that the trustees must take 
action. Thus, in the establishment of new departments and courses of study, 
while the faculty is the only body capable of formulating the matter, it 
must be favorably acted upon by the trustees before it can receive the 
necessary financial support. It is clearly impracticable, and therefore 
impossible for any board of trustees to allow the faculty to pass finally 
upon matters which necessitate expenditures of money not yet authorized 
by the board itself. 

"A good working scheme is that which recognizes the powers and duties 
of both bodies. In general, the faculty takes the initiative, and proposes 
a plan which is then submitted to the trustees for their approval. In 
case of non-approval, the matter must of necessity be dropped for the 
present, or so modified as to meet with approval later. In case of ap- 
proval, the trustees provide for the expense of the project, and should 
■delegate [leave] the arrangement of details to the faculty as the body of 
experts who are supposed to know more about these matters than the 
members of the governing body." 

Relatiori to the President 

In regard to the presidency it will suffice in this chapter to con- 
sider only the most fundamental of the many vexed questions 
concerning the office. Should the president be a member of the 



RELATION TO THE PRESIDENT 97 

governing board? It seems incongruous that the executive agent 
and intimate expert adviser of the board sliould vote on his own 
recommendations or in judgment of his own success. An op- 
posite theory, however, is held and practiced in some universi- 
ties. President Eliot's opinion represents the extreme: "In the 
board of trustees the president should invariably name all com- 
mittees, never allowing this important function to be usurped 
by any private member.^' This means in ordinary circumstances 
a one-man power, and relegates the "private'^ members of the 
board to a latent function for exercising a right of revolution 
against the president in case a majority of them should, in secret 
murmuring, decide to vote to depose their ruler, and seek a new 
one. It is, indeed, a vital necessity that the president should 
have powers commensurate with his responsibilities. As Doctor 
Draper says, 'Ue trustees make a mess of it, when they usurp 
executive functions, and they sow dragons' teeth when they in- 
trigue with a teacher or hunt a job for a patriot who thinks he 
is in need of it.'' The board must respect and sustain its execu- 
tive agent welcoming his advice on all subjects, and it is in ap- 
pointments to faculty membership that the board is most bound 
to be guided by his advice. Such matters are considered in a 
subsequent chapter. But the president's proper and necessary 
powers do not rest upon voting membership in the board of re- 
gents, still less upon the chairmanship of that board. It may 
be concluded that he should have voice but not vote in its ses- 
sions. His privilege of the floor should not be by courtesy, but 
it should be his right established in the primary ordinances of 
the board. 

Many corroborative opinions could be submitted testifying from 
experience to the inexpediency of the executive officer of the gov- 
erning board having membership therein. For state institutions— 
the subject of this study— there is little dispute about it. Mr. S. A. 
Bullard, President of the Board of Trustees of the University of 



98 RELATION TO THE PRESIDENT 

Illmois, at the N"ational Conference of College and University 
Trustees in 1905, gave his experience: 

"At the organization of the University of Illinois . . . there were 
thirty-two members of the board. . , . There were three who held the 
office by virtue of holding some other office in the State, one of them being 
the president of the university. He became [ex-officio] a member and 
also president of the board. . . . Operations under that regime did 
not last very long. The arrangement seemed to be unsatisfactory. The 
board was a large one, and it put into the hands of the president of the 
university immense power. ... As a matter of fact the president 
had almost unlimited power. Only a few years afterwards the legislature 
entirely changed the whole system. They reduced the board of trustees 
to eleven members, of whom the president of the university was no longer 
one. . . . The change arose from the fact that it was felt that too 
much power was placed in the hands of the president of the university. 
A change was made because of that fact, although every one in the State, 
including every member of the legislature, had the highest regard for the 
president. He was our first president and he remained president of the 
university for a good many years after that change was made. . . . 
And I think the university grew and prospered more after the change 
than before." 

1 see no need or good reason for changing the essential features 
of the American s3'Stem of university government and adminis- 
tration. But there is urgent, critical need of transforming the 
spirit in which the various functions are frequently discharged. 
In all quarters men are complaining of faults of omission and 
commission. In the mass of such complaints the remedies pro- 
posed often imply partial views. Seldom do the critics appear 
to have a comprehensive view — see the whole. Some neglect is 
observed, — the shortest cut to meet it is proposed; some malad- 
justment in one relation is indicated, — the remedy offered would 
dislocate other relations; some interference is bewailed, — and law 
is invoked to bind or to abolish the interloper. Such tendencies 
are not peculiar to our educational institutions; they have ap- 
peared in all fields. And the members of university faculties 
who are reproaching presidents for dictatorial methods, should 



TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 99 

observe tliat nearly all so-called deliberative bodies are showing 
more proneness to over-regulating whatever they have in charge 
than appears in individuals "dressed in a little brief authority" but 
unfit to be judges or dividers over men. Xo more ill considered 
excesses of regulation occur in the management of colleges and 
universities, than are to be found in purely faculty enactments 
for regulating the studies and conduct of students. 

Two Theories of University Management 

Improper encroachments by the governing boards and adminis- 
trative officers of American universities have sprung, I believe, 
more from misconceptions of organization in general and of the 
natural structure of the kind of organism they govern and ad- 
minister, than from any disposition to arrogance or egotism. Dr. 
Eugene Davenport, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion of the University of Illinois, has so nearly expressed and 
illustrated what I would submit to the reader at this point, that 
I prefer to use his words: 

"There are two theories of university management. They are clear cut, 
distinct, and diametrically opposite in fundamental principles. They lead 
their followers to conclusions as wide apart as are the principles on which 
they are based. The one looks upon a university as a great administra- 
tive machine, with regular gradations from top to bottom, or from center 
to circumference, each deriving its sole authority from the next above. 
The other looks upon a university as an organization of -working units* 
(departments) and of groups of departments (colleges, schools, experi- 
ment stations ) , each engaged in the achievement of particular and definite 
ends; each finding sufficient authority for its icork in the nature of its 
obligation; each accountable to administrative officers for results. . . . 

"The one regards administration as tlie principal, as it is the most con- 
spicuous feature of university service; the other regards work in the 
department as primary, and administration as necessary not to work, but 
to the coordination of work. . . . 



*I have taken the liberty of substituting organization of working units 
for "aggregation of working unity" in the original. 



100 TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 

"The one theory of university management is simple and direct because 
it either disregards or subordinates all other considerations to those of 
administration. In its simplicity lies its danger, for it sacrifices even 
the primary responsibilities of a department to the demands and the oper- 
ations of a well-rounded administrative machine. In its directness is its 
injury; for, by the edict of authority it secures promptly, even on the 
instant, certain results to which it may have set its hand even though it 
override every other consideration. Nobody sees the trail of blood. . . . 
The army without orders is idle. It has but one thing to do, obey. A 
university should be always busy executing commissions and discharging 
obligations without orders, and nobody realizes how the edicts of a 'strong 
administration,' erratic as they often are, plow through the very center 
of university work. So the means becomes the end, and obedience to 
authority the highest duty. Here is the danger to university life. 

"The alternative is more difficult, for it is more complicated. It recog- 
nizes the primary obligation of work and assumes that the details of 
administration shall fit the exigencies of service. ... A plan of organ- 
ization must be devised that will recognize and take account of the nat- 
urally busy centers where original obligations are discharged. 

"Now the heart and core and soul of the one theory of university 
organization is authority, absolute authority, expressed in terms of ad- 
ministration. According to this system all action is based upon authority, 
which, whether expressed or implied, is delegated from one central point. 
The heart and core and soul of the other theory is that the primary 
authority and rights of the individual arise out of the nature of the 
obligations he has assumed; that heads [or chairmen] of departments, 
deans of colleges, directors of experiment stations, presidents of univer- 
sities, boards of control, all have their distinct and definite duties and 
obligations; that properly understood, these obligations do not overlap, 
nor do the fields conflict; so that it is a safe principle that each responsi- 
bility carries with it enough authority to discharge the obligation, and 
each responsible individual is supreme in affairs lying clearly within the 
range of his activities, and free to do those things that will most directly 
and completely discharge his obligations. This theory calls for less 
authority and more work. ... It maintains that authority was 
neither handed down from above nor delegated from below, but that it 
is inherent in responsibility, was involved in the original engagement, 
and was conferred at the time and by the same authority that made the 
appointment to office, all of which is held to be a good and safe principle 



TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 101 

for €very man in tlie university, from the humblest assistant up to the 
trustees themselves ; and, vehcther the field be wide or narrow, the respon- 
sibility little or great, there is always involved authority sufficient to 
discharge its obligations. 

"The advocates of a 'strong administration' represent that university 
men are singularly lacking in judgment, and are valuable in proportion 
as they are managed; . . . they look upon subordinates as not pos- 
sessing original authority of any kind. 

"The opposition contends that this system will retain only mediocrity 
in university positions; that the nature of department service is such 
as to require not only technical knowledge and skill, but personal initia- 
tive as well, together with large freedom of action; and that the plan 
of management through administrative authority, though giving rise to 
a great show of activity at central points, removes the most powerful 
incentive to individual exertion, and fails to call out and make effective 
more than a small fraction of the tremendous forces latent in the per- 
sonnel of a great university. 

"The so-called 'strong administration' has the advantage in the eyes of 
those who look on, or those who are more familiar with the business side 
of university affairs than with the extensive and complicated work neces- 
sary to discharge university obligations. They who do not get behind 
the footlights see little of the consequences of too much administration. 

'•'The opposition is accused of advocating a weak system and of attempt- 
ing to break down administrative authority. . . . Nothing is further 
from the purposes of the writer than to advocate a weak organization, 
and no one knows better than he what are its certain consequences. It 
has always been true that a weak organization leaves boards of trustees 
at sea. In this condition they soon attempt to manage details them- 
selves. Abandoning their proper functions as legislative bodies, they 
undertake the role of administration, acting as their own executive. The 
consequences of this are even more disastrous than those of too much 
administration. . . . 

"The question is whether the system shall hang pendant from the sky, 
held together only by authority from above, or be built upon a foundation 
laid in department work and held together by graded authority arising 
out of responsibility for work accomplished. 

"Whichever system shall prevail, the departments must continue to do 
business and meet their obligations to the public the best they can. 



103 TWO THEORIES OF MAN^AGEMENT 

Through them the university must meet and discharge the bulk of its 
obligations. . . . 

"The principles and practices I advocate are those that we have ham- 
mered out together in the Experiment Station by dint of much conference 
and careful discussion while engaged in a complicated and difficult service. 
They have been born of experience and have established themselves among 
us as the most natural methods of work, . , . Whether the principles 
and practices are sound or whether they are false, of this I am assured, — 
if I, as Director, had attempted to maintain a so-called 'close administra- 
tion' over these departments, we should have all broken down together 
long ago. 

"Let me tell you something of the conditions under which we have 
wrought together, in this organization of which I am now speaking, . . . 
This is an array of conditions that may well appall any man, or set of 
men, and certainly tests the capacity of men and the elasticity and effi- 
ciency of an organization. I have heard one high in the counsels of this 
University say that the institution never before assumed such tremen- 
dous responsibilities as when it accepted these appropriations. ... At 
the outset I was told over and over again that our organization would 
break down under such a load laid suddenly upon us. It has not been 
broken down and I never feared that it would. The machinery has not 
even creaked, and we have been exceedingly happy together in rendering 
a service that requires a bulletin issue of 35,000 for each edition, and 
that long ago gave rise to a correspondence amounting to over 10,000 
letters a year, involving some of the most prominent men in the state, 
the nation, and the world. You will pardon this somewhat specific 
allusion to our affairs. It is necessary to what I have to say. 

"How did we discharge these new and tremendous obligations? Behold, 
now, I show you a mystery! So far as direct responsibility is concerned, 
six men did it. One of these is the director, it is true; but the work 
was done, and is being done, almost entirely without the use of authority. 
Of conference, discussion, and planning )f objects and methods and inter- 
pretation of results, hours, days, yes, weeks, have been spent on the part 
of these six men and their assistants. I assure there was prearrange- 
ment in every movement, — but exercise of authority! I question if it ever 
occurred to anybody to use it. Almost the only authority found necessary 
in this work has been the statute appropriating the funds, the election 
of employes upon the approval of the President, and the sanction of plans 
and appropriation of funds by the Trustees. There is a mass of authority 



TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 103 

in small compass. It does not touch details, yet it is ample. But little 
more was needed, and that was in the way of relieving a few incompe- 
tents. . . . 

"Within six years the total number of employes in the college and 
station increased from a dozen to nearly fifty, so that the responsibilities 
to which I have alluded are but a part of the full labor. I beg you to 
believe that I give this specific example with the sole desire to show you 
what men can accomplish when conditions are favorable, and when not 
annoyed by too much oversight and not circumscribed by too much admin- 
istrative direction. 

'*I could point out to you one of these men who is responsible for the 
profitable use of over $50,000 every year, spent in his department 
alone in amounts from five cents up; and to another whose researches 
bring him into close relations with the most extensive dealers and the 
largest business interests of the country. The least amount for which 
any one of the principal heads is responsible is $25,000 a year. Think of 
issuing orders to that kind of men! What would be their state of mind, 
if upon returning to the University after a conference with leading 
citizens upon matters involving thousands and perhaps millions of dollars 
when measured by public utility, or upon policies extending over genera- 
tions, they should pick up and read specific directions covering a ten 
dollar detail, or be compelled to take the time to request authority to 
dispose of a superannuated cow? Yet just such things are done and 
required, and just such things are advocated in the name of adminis- 
trative solidarity and such other phrases of obscure meaning but of great 
power to confuse. . . . 

"Service to the public was the only object recognized as legitimate, and 
loyalty to the University and all its interests the only restriction. . . . 

"Weekly conferences were held between the Director and the heads of 
departments, and department conferences are held at stated times, in most 
cases weekly. 

"Work within the departments is divided between individuals who, 
. . . are given to understand that each has his subject and will be 
held accountable for results. . . . 

"Every estimate for appropriations of funds is the result of conference 
with the heads of departments sitting together. Lump sums are thus 
divided by the departments interested, and, after the appropriation is 
made, each individual knows how much money he may count upon for 
the year, with which to discharge his obligations. . . . There has 
never yet been a case of discord or of heart-burning among us. . . . 



104 TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 

'•'Our departments have had every possible opportunity for work. Every- 
man knows his responsibilities. He knows in advance how much money 
he can have for the year with which to discharge his obligations. He 
knows, too, that it w^as all divided, for he helped to make the division, 
and therefore he thoroughly understands the basis on which it was made. 
In expenditures his hand is free, and his judgment, after conference, is 
final; because there is no better information than his to be had. . 

"Well-defined responsibilities, freedom of dction, knowledge of financial 
resources, abundant conferences, not too much administrative direction, 
an open avenue for information to the trustees, mutual helpfulness; these 
are the fundamental requisites for efficient university service. 

"This paper would not only be incomplete but subject to dangerous mis- 
construction without a word regarding the presidency, although it is a 
subject I am not discussing. I know^ the question that will first be raised: 
'Tf every department is to largely manage its own affairs, and if each 
individual is to discharge his obligations with some freedom from direction 
with power of initiative, then where is the authority of the president, and 
what is the occasion of his office?' . . . 

"The plans, the estimates, and the lists of employes nominated, all pass 
under the president's hands before consideration for final action. This is 
the administrative opportunity. Here is where the president can put his 
finger on the very pulse of the situation. Here is the place and this is 
the time for discussion, for influence, and for authority, if you please, and 
plenty of it. He who puts his hand upon the estimates and the personnel 
and the general policies will control the situation, so far as authority can 
control it for good. That men shall be elected to university positions only 
upon the president's recommendation; this is the president's high pre- 
rogative. It is one of his natural and inalienable rights arising out of the 
nature of his responsibilities, and if this is assured, the presidency is 
safe.* . . . 

"I know of no better way to bring before you the principles that some 
of us believe in and the reason for our belief than to do as I have done, 
hold up a bit of real life organized and operating on plans diametrically 
opposite to some that are most loudly advocated, and which I firmly believe, 
should they ever become really settled into university life, would either 
lead to explosion at points where affairs are hot with real labor or they 



*Additional comments by Director Davenport, appreciative of the neces- 
sity for and value of the presidential office, are given in a subsequent 
chapter. 



TWO THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT 105 

would settle down with crushing force, smothering the very life out of 
individual enterprise and initiative, leaving behind lethargy and time- 
serving remnants, responding only to the prod of administrative direc- 
tion. . . . 

"I have been told that these ideas are visionary; that, for example, men 
will not divide money without quarreling. This is a libel on the intelli- 
gence, the character, and good sense of responsible university men. We 
of the Agricultural Experiment Station are no better than others, but 
our conditions have forced us out of narrow into wider conceptions of men, 
and of university affairs. Every man who labors early and late in the 
discharge of diflficult duty, and who thereby wins a place high in the 
esteem of leading men outside ought to be able to hold up his head and 
say with reference even to university affairs, 'I also am a man.' Who 
can measure the stimulus of that feeling in the very marrow of the 
bones? . . . 

"If a man be treated as a child he will either resent it or leave; or, 
remaining for the sake of bread for his little ones, he will grow small of 
mind and listless of effort, — a marionette animated only by transmitted 
power, I have known some of these child men; they are pitifully worth- 
less for experiment station purposes. Administration we must have, but 
let administration take its proportional place in university affairs. Let 
us have as few orders, as little red tape, as few card catalogs and num- 
bered blanks and report slips as possible. Therefore let us not fall in love 
with the system and forget or prevent what it is to accomplish, and let 
us remember after all that an institution is small or great according to 
the characters that compose its faculty, which is the most stable element 
of its personnel, and without whose loyal and intelligent and technical 
service no institution and no administration can succeed, . , , 

"There is a service of the heart, born of loyalty and tradition, that will 
serve a cause or an individual even unto death. It is born not of author- 
ity, which is never able to command even a tithe of service available; 
it is born of loyalty, of that spirit of doing and serving that cannot be 
bought with money, that cannot be demanded by authority, that cannot 
live under oppression or scorn. We must have this service if our univer- 
sities are to realize the possibilities they may attain, or render to the 
public the service easily within their capacity. We can have this service 
in universities if we do not drive away by childish or cruel treatment 
those who alone are capable of rendering it. If we do drive them away 
then God pity the state university," 



106 TWO ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 

The Two Essential Responsibilities 

The two most essential and unescapable responsibilities of the 
governing board are (1) legislation that really organizes accoi'd- 
ing to the true nature of an institution of higher education, and 
(2) judging results. Those obligations render it very important 
that every member of the lx)ard should form clear concepts of all 
general aims and of the suitability of every general policy as a 
means to its end. As a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology^ has said, the American system needs to "develop trus- 
tees who actually, instead of fictitiousl}', comprehend their trust/' 
One of the first steps to such a development should be a thoughtful 
choice between the two ideas of university administration con- 
trasted in the preceding discourse of Director Davenport. As 
he says, either of the two plans can be made to work. The real 
question to be judged is: What kind of men will be found oc- 
cup}dng the teaching positions after the method has been thor- 
oughly established? A regent needs primarily to answer by his 
own judgment the questions: What is the real, the vital, the 
essential work of a university, that for which it was instituted, 
and for which it is maintained, that for which it is to be governed 
and administered? And where is this work done, and who are 
the doers of it ? 

Professor S. A. Forbes raises those questions, and he answers: 
"It is the work of education and research, done in lecture rooms 
and laboratories and libraries, and by the members of the univer- 
sity faculty," I would expand that answer in each of its three 
parts — the work, the places, and the doers : It is the work of 
teaching and learning and research; the work is done in lecture 
rooms and laboratories and libraries and in the homes of the 
teachers and of the students; it is done by the members of the 
faculty and by the students. The regents, and the president and 
his lieutenants, are not the only ones who need to answer search- 
ing questions. Faculty members also need to think of what they 



QUALITY 107 

2re for. Except for creative work and certain services to the gen- 
eral public, the members of the faculty exist, as such, for the 
students. 

Some one may rejoin to all this, that there is no dispute — 
that nobody holds differently. It is probably true that nobody 
would formulate a direct contradiction; but that many hold (in 
the sense of practice) irreconcilable principles is plain. Actions 
speak louder than words. Also it is in .«tate universities that the 
principles here appealed to are most violated. In some of them, 
more today than ever before, quality is being sacrificed to quantity 
in every respect. Nor am I sure that we shall not soon hear out- 
spoken championship of the quantitij principle. The logic of 
criticism may force the level er into the open; he may grow bold 
enough to face the issue. For example, he may begin to delib- 
erately justify the practice (already common) of preferring fifty 
weak departments to ten strong ones. President J. W. Mauck 
has remarked: "The point which must be attacked is the whole 
administrative spirit. . . . Today we have in many institu- 
tions, small and great, too much devotion to the popularizing of 
a name, and too little devotion to high ideals. ... It seems 
to be not a question of how great we are, but as to how large.'' 

There is deep and universal significance in a recent comment 
by Miss Ida M. Tarbell upon the popularity of shoddy dress. All 
that she says may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to many current 
methods in education: 

"From top to bottom we are copying. . . . The French or Viennese 
mode, started on Upper Fifth Avenue, spreads to Twenty-third Street, to 
Fourteenth Street, from Fourteenth Street to Grand and Canal. Each 
move sees it reproduced in materials a little less elegant and durable, its 
colors vulgarized, its ornaments cheapened. By the time it reaches Houston 
Street the $400 gown in brocaded velvet from the best looms in Europe has 
become a cotton velvet, decorated with mercerized lace and glass orna- 
ments. . . . The same process goes on inland. The same gown will 
travel its downward path westward until the Grand Street creation arrives 
in some mining or factory town. From start to finish it is imitation, and 



108 QUALITY 

on this imitation vast industries are built — imitations of silks, of velvets, 
of laces, of jewels. . . . 

"They are bravely ornamented, but never properly clothed. Moreover, 
they are brave but for a day. Their purchases have no goodness in them; 
they tear, grow rusty, fall to pieces with the first wearings, and the poor 
little victims are shabby and bedraggled often before they have paid for 
their belongings. 

"This habit of buying poor imitations does not end in the girl's life 
with her clothes. When she marries she carries it into her home. Deco- 
ration, not furnishings, is the keynote of all she touches. It is she who 
is the best patron of the elaborate and monstrous cheap furniture, rugs, 
draperies, crockery, bric-a-brac, which fill the shops of the cheaper quarters 
of the great cities, and usually all quarters of the newer inland towns. 

"Has all this no relation to National prosperity — to the cost of living? 
The effect on the victim's personal budget is clear; the effect it has on 
the family budget is clear. In both cases nothing of permanent value is 
acquired. The good linen undergarments, the all-wool gown, the broad- 
cloth cape or coat — those standard garments which the thrifty once 
acquired and cherished, only awaken the mirth of the pretty little spend- 
thrift on $8 a week. Solid pieces of furniture, such as often dignify even 
the huts of European peasants, and are passed down from mother to 
daughter for generations, are objects of contempt to the younger generation 
here. ... 

"This production of shoddy cloth, cotton lace, cheap furniture — ^what is 
it but waste? Waste of labor and material. Time and money and 
strength, which might have been turned to producing things of permanent 
values, have been spent in things which have no goodness in them. . . 
Dress is not merely a personal problem; it is a National problem. It is 
part and parcel of the problem of the cost of living, of woman's wages, of 
wasteful industries, of the social evil. Its right solution means not only 
saner and happier women, but it also means more stable industries, a less 
tormented society, . . . 

"I doubt if this vicious influence will be weakened, whatever our cam- 
paign for social purity, until we have come back to a natural love of 
quality and of beauty and fitness in dress for their own sakes. As it is 
now, the very heart of the question of clothes among American women is 
imitation. That is, we are not engaged in an effort to work out in- 
dividuality." 



QUALITY 109 

The temper of the popular life as a whole is indeed a prepon- 
derating factor; but it is not impossible to influence the temper 
of a people, and something can be done to strengthen and spread 
a good tradition. It sliould be borne in mind that the devices of 
college and nniversity administration that have looked to quantity 
and ignored quality have been mainly adopted without any de- 
liberate ]>olicy. This fact is recognized in the most unsparing ar- 
raignments of such errors of administration. "They have taken 
shape," says Professor Jastrow of the University of Wisconsin, "by 
the stress of circumstance, by provisional expediency; and this 
fact offers not only a large measure of excuse but also lightens 
the task of those who question whether future wisdom lies where 
the compromise of the past has directed. ... I know very 
well that changes of ideals and purposes must first inspire confi- 
.dence and enthusiasm before they reach practical possibilities; bnt 
I am encouraged by the example of many other educational and 
national evils, that, once clearly recognized, have in astonishingly 
brief time been swept away by the strenuous purpose of the na- 
tional temper.'^ 

The "task" would be much aided if editorial Avriters would study 
the question critically, — if many of them could deal with it as it 
is dealt with in a recent editorial in the New York Evening Post: 

"Thirty-seven years ago next fall Johns Hopkins University was opened, 
upon an endowment estimated at less than $3,500,000. Yesterday, it was 
stated that the budget adopted by the trustees of Columbia University 
for the expenses of the coming academic year amounted to $3,450,000. 
The foundation of the University at Baltimore was widely acclaimed as 
an event of the highest importance and the most hopeful augury. . . . 
The trustees had made it plain that their opportunity was to be so used 
as to give to the higher intellectual life of the country a long-needed 
stimulus. The hope was entertained that the new university would be 
the means of introducing in America the true university, in the European 
sense of the term. And that hope was not disappointed. The foundation 
of Johns Hopkins University marked the beginning of a distinctly new 
era in the history of higher education in America. What had formerly 
been the rare pursuit of a devoted scholar here and there has become the 



110 QUALITY 

regular occupation of thousands of students in scores of colleges and 
universities. . . . 

"In compassing with what would now be regarded as small means so 
signal an achievement, one cardinal feature of the policy pursued by- 
President Gilman and the Johns Hopkins trustees was essential. There 
was one thing to which every efi'ort was directed, every energy bent — the 
securing of the highest possible quality in the professors. A small group 
of real intellectual leaders formed the nucleus of the faculty; and in 
adding to them younger men in the various departments the keenest 
interest was constantly maintained in the discovery of unusual talent or 
exceptional attainment. Those who were at the university in its early 
years testify unanimously to the extraordinary exhilaration and inspira- 
tion of the atmosphere thus created. The buildings were extremely modest, 
and in large part of a makeshift character, being old residences altered at 
slight expense; the warning given by Huxley, in his notable address at 
the opening, against putting into bricks and mortar what ought to be 
invested in brains, was rather by way of accentuating a policy already 
pursued than of advising its adoption. 

"The revenue from the endowment proved to be even less than had been 
expected; . . . and if so great an impetus was given at Baltimore to 
the university idea in America, this must be ascribed, above all else, to 
the clear recognition of intellectual superiority as the touchstone of uni- 
versity distinction. 

"The Columbia budget of $3,450,000 is typical of the present-day expend- 
itures of our larger universities. That they accomplish results of extensive 
and varied usefulness, no one would deny. They cover a field much larger 
than that which formerly comprised the activities of our institutions of 
learning. . . . But we doubt whether any one would so much as claim 
that the enormous enlargement of university expenditure has been attended 
with any such nourishment of high intellectual standards or ideals as 
might have been hoped. . . . 

"In comparison with this question, all matters of mere management are 
trivial. And it is for this reason, more than any other, that we have 
always regarded the magnifying of questions of administration in our 
American universities as so deplorable. To get men of real power into 
the professorships — that is the great problem. 

"The question of salaries is undoubtedly a stumbling-block; . . . but 
important as this material side is, even more important are the less 
tangible elements that fix the character of the professorial life. . . . 



STATUS OF THE FACULTY 111 

All other tasks of university presidents and university trustees are of 
small moment in comparison." 

The Status of the Faculty 

The essential fact that a nniversit}^ must be built upon its pro- 
fessorships, if it is to be truly built up at all, is recognized by 
many university trustees and presidents, and the existing evils are 
quite generaly perceived, but no general* movement for a proper 
correlation of trustees and faculty has yet arisen. The question 
of the proper status of the faculty is so fundamental for every 
governing board, that it may be advantageous to extend the data 
here submitted by several more statements pointing out some of 
the conditions that call for remedial changes in the spirit and 
policies of government and administration. Describing "the drift 
within the university," Professor Jastrow has testified: 

"Colleges engage in what the press is pleased to call a friendly rivalry 
to secure the largest crop of freshmen; and undue influences are set at 
work upon departments and professors to attract large classes. Facilita- 
tion of administrative measures and some practical executive efficiency are 
far more apt to meet with tangible rewards than are more academic 
talents. It takes a sturdy determination, a sterling character, and a large 
measure of actual sacrifice to withstand this manifold pressure. Those 
who resist it least, or are least sensitive to anything to be resisted, are 
likely to find themselves in the more prominent places; and so the unfor- 
tunate emphasis gathers strength by its o^vn headway. The esprit of 
academic intercourse, the inspiration of individual character subtly yet 
inevitably lose their finer qualities. There comes to be developed a type 
who pursues his career in a decided 'business' frame of mind, . . . 
keen for the main chance, ready to advertise his wares and advance his 
trade, eager for new markets, a devotee of statistically measured success. 
At the best, he loses with advancing years that mellow ripening of the 
scholar, lays aside all too willingly the protecting aegis of his ideals and 
his enthusiasm, and fails to maintain in his activity the very vital quality 
that appreciative students should, and commonly do look upon, and look 
back upon, as the choicest advantage of their academic intercourse. 



**Se« page 120 et sq. for tlie plan elaborated by President Schurman, 
which will probably be instituted in Cornell University. 



112 STATUS OF THE FACULTY 

"If any one consequence of this serious situation may be rated more 
serious than the rest, it is the effect of it all upon the younger members 
of the instructional staff. A Teutonic student of our educational situation 
recently pointed out to me this disastrous phase of our unadjusted uni- 
versity arrangements as the most potent reason for our unproductiveness 
in original effort and the chief obstacle to our cultural advance. He con- 
trasted the situation with that of the Privat-Docent, who, though with 
most precarious income, found no such hindrance, when once launched 
upon academic seas. . . . That intense and crippling sense of account- 
ability (to which President Pritchett has likewise directed attention) is 
all but absent from the Privat-Docenfs career. It is likely to crowd out 
by its insistent demands almost every other serious purpose of the young 
instructor." 

Mr. James P. Munroe, trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technolog}^, viewing the same internal conditions, mentions also 
an external effect in public sentiment of far reaching consequences 
for the future, and proposes plans for reorganization^ which he 
believed would be remedial : 

"It is a common cry that teachers — whether in colleges or in schools — 
are underpaid; and the complaint (especially if one has been a school 
oflBcial) seems amply justified. The imperative need of our American col- 
lege faculties, however, is not higher salaries; it is larger professional 
authority and more genuine freedom. Those attained, the wage question 
will take care of itself. It is true that teaching offers no such money 
prizes as does law or medicine; nevertheless, the average professor is in 
many ways better situated than the average lawyer or physician. Despite 
this patent fact, young men of power and ambition scorn what should be 
reckoned the noblest of professions, not because that profession condemns 
them to poverty, but because it dooms them to a sort of servitude. . . . 

"The [salaried] teacher serves the public and must rest, therefore, under 
some of a servant's disabilities. Yet, without impairing the proper powers 
of trustees, it is possible, I believe, to give teachers — or rather to restore 
to them — so much of authority, dignity, and independence as shall raise 
teaching to a position where it will commend itself to the most ambitious 
and best-trained youth. . . . 

"Why does the very fountain of our higher life present this paradox? 
Mainly, I think, because the European universities grew from within, 
while those of this country have been established from without. Both 



STATUS OF THE FACULTY 113 

business and political experience have taught men of the world that the 
quickest and least troublesome way to solve administrative problems is to 
give as free a hand as possible to some man with brains, with tact, with 
power of initiative, of leadership, and of persuasion — with, in short, those 
peculiar abilities which distinguish the generals of our intricate twentieth 
century enterprises, . . . They have their staff in the several admin- 
istrative officers, such as deans and registrars; , . . and the work of 
the great machine, through committees, sub-committees, and automatic 
methods of reporting, is as smooth-running, and sometimes, I fear, almost 
as impersonal as a well-developed mercantile establishment. . . , Mere 
information, lesson-hearing, examinations, become paramount; scholarship 
and character are well-nigh forgotten, being impossible to register by even 
the most elaborate machinery. . . . 

"I would advocate the creation in every board of trustees of a new 
standing committee. This committee should be most carefully chosen, and 
its duty should be to confer, at stated and frequent intervals, with a like 
standing committee of the faculty, selected freely by that body itself. 
And I would advise, further, that this conference committee be distinct, 
if possible, from that executive committee which I have called the presi- 
dent's cabinet, and that no legislation of any consequence should be passed 
by the executive committee or by the trustees as a whole without the 
concurrence of this joint committee. And — at least so far as relates to 
questions having any educational bearing — I would have it understood 
that the joint committee should not concur until the proposed action had 
been submitted to the faculty as a whole, had been debated, if so desired, 
before the standing committee and the executive committee sitting in 
joint session, and had been approved by at least a majority of the teaching 
staff. 

"Such a general plan (the details of which, needless to say, would 
differ with each college) could not fail, it seems to me, to increase the 
educational efficiency of a college to an extraordinary degree by coordi- 
nating the views of those without and those within the daily routine of 
teaching; by establishing a clear understanding, in each body, of the 
other's problems; by relieving the executive of a substantial portion of his 
crushing load through increasing the legislative and administrative respon- 
sibility of the faculty; and, not least, by making that faculty — without 
adding to its legal powers — a body coordinate with, instead of subordinate 
to, the board of trustees. Unless American college teachers can be assured 
by some such change as this that they are no longer to be looked upon 
as mere employes, our universities will suffer increasingly from a dearth 



ll-i STATUS OF THE FACULTY 

of strong men and teaching will remain outside the pale of really learned 
professions. As I said in the beginning, the problem is not one of wages; 
for no university can ever become rich enough to buy the independence of 
any man who is really worth the purchasing." 

Evidently trustee Munroe knows much of inner conditions, and 
in his proposition that coordination^ not subordination, should 
characterize the relation between faculty and board of trustees, he 
states the central principle of needed reforms. His plan doubt- 
less contemplated a large and complex governing board and one 
compact faculty. The Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, of which Mr. Munroe is a member, has fifty-one 
members, being about one-half the size of the faculty. Applica- 
tions of the fundamental principle to a simpler and smaller board 
and to complex and larger faculties could be readily suggested. 
The terms of the plan as he states it seem too sweeping, but he 
was not framing an ordinance and probably had in view more 
specific provisions which would make some reservations. 

Mr. Munroe's discussion (published in Science, Dec. 29, 1905) 
shows various minor misconceptions. For instance, he supple- 
ments the plan of organization stated above by another proposal 
which, if carried out, would be very injurious. It is, alas, noth- 
ing new; on the contrary, its practice has insidiously led some 
boards of trustees to conduct business, and their members to con- 
duct themselves, after the fashion — though with entirely dijfferent 
motives — of city aldermen elected by wards.* He offers ("with 
diffidence") the second plan as a means to a most desirable end — 
the trustees should know the faculty "as men." The aim does 
credit to head and heart, but it would not be expediently attained 
by the means proposed: 

"This second plan is to make every member of the board of trustees an 
administrative officer in that branch of the college work (so far as pos- 
sible) which is most congenial to him, giving him no special individual 
powers over his assigned department, but increasing his responsibilities by 



*Cf. page 12. 



STANDING COMMITTEES 115 

making- him — together with one or more of his colleagues — the direct and 
responsible channel of information between that department and the whole 
board of trustees, by having it formally understood that in all matters 
relating to his department the trustee would be looked to for reliable 
information and responsible advice." 

In the first place it would be only in very exceptional cases that 
a regent wonld give the time required for any genuine fulfill- 
ment of the function proposed. To count upon "every" member 
is practically absurd. But even if the board of regents could be 
made up entirely of expert men of leisure^ the proposed arrange- 
ment would pervert normal relations. The proper responsibility 
of the president w^ould be divided, and the faculty would be dis- 
tracted — one eye on the half-president and the other on his com- 
plementary "administrative'^ trustee. There would be too much 
activity by some of the trustees, causing disastrous interference 
with the president and with their respective segments of the fac- 
• ulty; and in other cases other segments of the work and workers 
of the institution would have iminformed or misinformed repre- 
sentatives who would nevertheless be "looked to" for authorita- 
tive guidance. Such a method would tend to disintegrate the 
natural combined wisdom of a board. Just as when aldermen are 
elected by wards the city is seldom considered by the city coun- 
cil, and the representatives of wards collude in a maze of trades 
and concessions to aldermanic courtesy, — ^so a board of regents (of 
the usual size for state universities) whose proper function is to 
legislate with the broadest view, would be disintegrated into ex 
parte advocates, if its members w^ere assigned to be representatives 
of respective segments of educational work. Unless the members 
of the governing board are so numerous that its full convocation 
makes a large body (as is the case with some endowed institutions), 
or unless some branch of the institution is separately located, the 
standing committees of its board of regents should be differen- 
tiated for special extensive functions, not for special segments of 
the work of the faculty. That is^ each standing committee should 



116 STATUS OF THE FACULTY 

deal ^ath the subject-matter of its assignment wherever such mat- 
ter arises. 

While condemning the second of Mr. Munroe's plans^ the good 
purpose he imagined it might serve, should not be lost sight of. 
But no law whatever can compass that. It is simply a matter that 
every regent ought to lay upon his conscience, — to compass as far 
as he can make opportunities to know the faculty "as men.^^ The 
direct responsibilities of the board of regents being legislation 
and judging results, every member needs not only to understand 
the true nature of the institution abstractly, but also to know 
concrete facts. The character of the faculty in scholarship and 
in manhood are the most significant of facts whereby a regent may 
judge what the institution really is, and especially how truly suc- 
cessful the president has been. 

Enough has been submitted to sliow that American universities 
have developed a serious problem concerning faculty participation 
in university government. The reader will notice that it is mostly 
trustees and administrative officers who are here quoted as wit- 
nesses to the facts from which the problem arises. They cannot 
be suspected of professional or personal bias in advising the re- 
striction of their own authority. This volume could have been 
filled with bitter or despairing views of members of faculties, 
which have been published within the last two years. For ex- 
ample: "If universities retain their present meager salaries and 
systems of autocratic control, then able men will not embark on 
such ill-starred ships. They will carry forward scientific work in 
connection with industry and will attract as apprentices those com- 
petent to learn the ways of research." "The university is a para- 
site on the scholarly impulse instead of a stimulus to it.'^ "A fac- 
tory system with a manager to employ and discharge the instruc- 
tional force and bosses to keep each gang up to a square day's 
work . . . then the highest productive scholarship and crea- 
tive research must find refuge elsewhere than in such a univer- 



STATUS OF THE FACULTY 117 

sity." "Id certain departments of certain universities instructors 
and junior professors are placed in a situation to which no decent 
domestic servant would submit/' "The faculty to which I belong, 
meeting three times a year, without power or responsibility, is 
clearly dedicated to futility.'^ {Science, May 31, 1912.) The con- 
ditions in the better universities are not yet so bad as such ex- 
pressions would suggest. 

Professor J. ^IcKean CattelFs correspondence with 299 profes- 
sors 'Tiolding the most important scientific chairs in our univer- 
sities," summarized in successive issues of Science following May 
24, 1912, showed 46 as favoring the practice usual in this coun- 
try; 69 as favoring a system in which the faculties have greater 
share in control, as at Yale or Leland Stanford or the Johns 
Hopkins ^fedical vSchool ; 184 as favoring a plan of representation 
more or less similar to the one proposed by Professor Cattell, 
which presented some startling and needless features likely to repel 
experienced men. Yet the answers he received from 299 experienced 
men showed that "five-sixths believe that there should be a change 
in administrative methods in the direction of limiting the powers 
of the president and other executive officers, and making them re- 
sponsible to those engaged in the work of teaching and research." 
He explains the existence in academic circles of a '•cynical attitude 
toward faculty meetings/' as "one of the sinister symptoms re- 
sulting from the existing methods of control." "When all im- 
portant matters," he says, "are decided by administrative officers 
or executive committees and only trivial questions are discussed 
before the faculty, its meetings are likely to fall into disrepute." 
From the 299 replies, he infers: '^'When eighty-five per cent, of 
those responsible for the conduct of a given system unite in hold- 
ing that it should be altered, the case may be regarded as strong." 

Advocates of the prevalent practice in the government of uni- 
versities base their opposition to any change primarily on the im- 
practicability of "town-meeting^"^ methods for faculties aggregating 



118 FACULTY PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT 

such numbers as have arisen in the large universities. It seems 
to them that the drift into autocratic control has been necessary. 
But a town-meeting method is not the only alternative. No such 
method is advocated except by impatient extremists, carried away 
by misconceived ideas of "democracy." Prudent counsellors advise 
for the government of the university merely some system of repre- 
sentation, and approve direct methods only in its unitary depart- 
ments. Arguments against the participation by every professor in 
everything have no bearing upon an}^ plan here submitted for 
consideration. 

Faculty Participation in University Government 

It is significant that a thoroughgoing plan for faculty participa- 
tion in university government has been conceived, and is now 
being applied in a great university where for more than twenty 
years there has been, perhaps, the least practical need for such 
reorganization. But the experienced president and magnanimous 
man who has taken this step (which may mark a new era) had 
surveyed the land, and he knows that prevention is better than 
cure. He knows too that the longest term of the best president 
is but a little span in the life of the institution, and that in doing 
for others, however justly, things they ought to do for themselves, 
the ultimate loss must be greater than any proximate gain. The 
Cornell plan aims at the maximum of faculty participation in in- 
stitutional control compatible with the American system. Pro- 
gressive steps toward it would be preferable in some cases. 

President Schurman squarely faced the problem in his official 
report for 1909-10, and in his last report, for 1911-12, he sub- 
mitted with recommendation for immediate adoption a fully elab- 
orated plan. I give several statements from the 1909-10 report, 
which with admirable brevity and force state the problem : 

"The fact that there is in American universities a professorial problem 
itself shows that something is seriously wrong. The university began as 
a guild of scholars, and throughout the seven or eight hundred years of 



FACULTY PARTICIPATION IN G0VP:RNMENT 119 

its history the faculty essentially constituted the university. . . . 
Whatever organization may be necessary in a modern American univer- 
sity the institution v^^ill not permanently succeed unless the faculty as a 
group of free individual personalities practically control its operations. 
This is said with a full consciousness of the fact that there is a large 
amount of business ancillary to the main object of the university which 
members of the faculty ought not to be asked to perform. The point is 
that the men who attend to this business shall not use their position to 
subject the faculty to extrinsic control or influence. 

"As American universities are now organized the faculty has a partner 
in the board of trustees, which, if legal rights be asserted, is undoubtedly 
predominant; its own administrative officer or dean may be suspected of 
arrogating to himself the functions of his colleagues; and the president 
who as head of the university with powers and duties and responsibilities 
impossible to define may acquire and exercise functions which properly 
belong to the trustees or to the faculty and of which they have been 
deprived. . . . At any rate American professors have come to feel 
that their independence is imperiled and their proper influence* in the 
university organization seriously impaired by the activity of deans, presi- 
dents, and trustees. And if the complainant is a junior teacher over 
whom there is a departmental head he may declare that the domination 
of his eolleague is more intolerable than any other form of tyranny prac- 
ticed in the university. The oflFender may be a trustee, president, dean, 
or director — or even the professor who denounces their invasion of his 
just rights!" 

President Schurman proceeded, in that report, to explain that, 
unless state legislatures were "ready to make the scholars and 
scientists who are the soul of the university its corporate body also 
— as is the case with the ancient colleges of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge," it would be impossible to establish the faculty legally "as 
the controlling power of the university.^^ He indicated that such 
a revolutionary change is very improbable, and that it would not 
be expedient, in view of the size and complexity of a large uni- 



*President Eliot has said that "most American professors of good qual- 
ity" would feel such responsibility, "as a serious reduction in the attract- 
iveness of the scholar's life and the professional career." The question is 
a matter of fact, and the weight of evidence sustains President Schur- 
man's statement. 



120 THE CORNELL PLAN 

versity with its dozen different faculties knowing little of and 
having little to do with one another's affairs. He pointed out that 
in the State of New York a law prohibits a professor becoming a 
trustee for the institution of which he is a member. [The plan 
subsequenthr prepared by him looks forward to the amendment of 
that law.] The report for 1909-10 went on to show how "the end 
in view can be accomplished without state legislation or even 
without institutional reorganization." Parts of President Schur- 
man's noble and highly expert discourse upon purely voluntary 
attitudes and efforts will be given in the chapters dealing directly 
with the president and the faculty. We are here concerned with 
what could and should be done in the way of salutary ordinances. 
The practical working of an}^ system depends upon the spirit and 
ability of individuals, but a bad system of organization will in 
the long run demoralize the co-operative spirit of the group of 
workers and leads to the survival of bad or weak individuals. With 
this principle doulotless in mind, President Schurman pondered 
the matter two more years, and then submitted a plan of reorgani- 
zation which applies his principles to the particular conditions 
fixed for Cornell University, until existing state laws are changed. 
It would be easy to apply to simpler cases the essential ideas 
of the following plan, presented in President Schurman's official 
report for 1911-12 : 

The Cornell Plan 

"The present gcvernment of American universities and colleges is alto- 
gether anomalous. The president and trustees hold the reins of power 
and exercise supreme control while the professors are legally in the posi- 
tion of employes of the corporation. In the best institutions, however, it 
should be explicitly recognized that the status of the professors is in 
practice a good deal better than could be claimed as a matter of mere 
legal right. ... In the best American universities all educational 
matters have been either formally or by tacit consent delegated by the 
trustees to the faculties for authorization and final disposition. The place 
of the faculty as the sole educational authority of the university may be 
considered established, even though in some reputable universities the 



THE CORNELL PLAN 121 

board of trustees reserves the right of veto or revision. Certainly in 
Cornell University the supremacy of the Faculty in all educational mat- 
ters has been maintained for a score of years, and professorial tenure of 
office is permanent and secure. Furthermore, the right to absolute free- 
dom of thought and speech for all members of the Faculty has been vigor- 
ously asserted and constantly enjoyed. 

"It should, therefore, be candidly acknowledged that a professor who 
enjoys a life-tenure of office, who is absolutely free to think and speak 
and write what he believes to be the truth, and who is a member of a 
body which controls the educational administration of the university, is 
already ia possession and enjoyment of the highest, best, and most vital 
things which inhere in his calling and function. Yet while all this is 
true the professor may be dissatisfied with the other conditions under 
which he is compelled to do his work. And this is undoubtedly the case 
in An>€rica 

"What the American professor wants is the same status, the same 
authority, the same participation in the government of his university as 
his colleague in England, in Germany, and in other European countries 
already enjoys. He chafes at being under a board of trustees which in 
his most critical moods he feels to be alien to the Republic of Science and 
Letters. Even in his kindliest moods he cannot think that board repre- 
sentative of the university. For the university is an intellectual organ- 
ization, con posed essentially of devotees of knowledge — some investigating, 
some con?n.unicating, some acquiring — but all dedicated to the intellectual 
life. To this essential fact the American professor wants the government 
of his university to conform. And he criticises presidents and boards of 
trustees because under the existing plan of government they obstruct the 
realizatior of this ideal — nay, worse, actually set up and maintain an 
alien ideal, the ideal of a business corporation engaging professors as 
employes and controlling them by means of authority. . . . 

"What is needed /in American universities today is a new application 
of the principle of representative government. The faculty is essentially 
the university; yet in the governing boards of American universities the 
facultj is without representation. The only ultimately satisfactory solu- 
tion of the problem of the government of American universities is the 
concession to the professoriate of representation in the board of trustees 
or regents, and these representatives of the intellectual which is the real 
life of the university, must not be mere ornamental figures; they should 
be granted an active sliare in the routine administration of the institution. 



122 THE CORNELL PLAN" 

"How could such a reform be carried out in Cornell University? [The 
Board of Trustees of Cornell UnivervSity is a large, complex body. Its 
members are appointed in various ways, for various terms. It has thirty- 
nine members. Nearly half of the thirty-nine members, excluding ex-officio 
members, are appointed by co-optation of the Board. The trustees ap- 
pointed by the board number three annually. It is the custom to re-elect 
when their term expires.] 

"Now in case of the death or resignation of one of these co-opt^tively 
elected trustees, the Board might, without any change in the charter, ask 
the professoriate to select a candidate for the vacant position and then 
formally elect the candidate thus recommended. This process might be 
repeated till the professors had designated one-third of the trustees now 
elected by the Board, and thereafter professorial representation might 
remain in that ratio. 

"For the purpose of such representation it would probably be wise and 
expedient to divide the professorial electorate into groups, each of which 
should elect one trustee. Only full professors would have the suffrage, 
as only full professors hold permanent appointments. [The assignment of 
the electorate to the various faculties of Cornell's nine or ten colleges and 
schools, one of which (part of the Medical College) is situated in New 
York City. The faculties of Cornell University aggregate nearly seven 
hundred members, who were divided into six groups for the representation.! 

"This plan would give the professors a share in the government of the 
University through the voice and vote of their own elected representatives, 
who (unless an unalterable State law* forbids) should preferably be mem- 
bers of the Faculty. But this injection of professorial trustees into the 
Board would be a somewhat slow process, if, as is here recommended, it 
took effect only when vacancies occurred by death or resignation in trustee- 
ships now filled by co-optation of the Board.* There is, however, another 
measure of relief which could and should be forthwith adopted, 
and which should continue in operation whether the privilege of repre- 
sentatioiJ in the Board of Trustees be conceded or denied to the pro- 
fessoriate. 

"While the Faculties of the University control educational affairs they 
have, under the statutes, nothing to do with the appointment of teachers, 
the appropriation of funds, or other business vitally connected with the 



*Ileferring to the law mentioned on page 119. 
*Referring to custom of re-election mentioned above. 



THE CORNELL PLAN 123 

life and work of the institution or the standing and efficiency of the 
several departments. Here, again, it is true that practice is more con- 
siderate than theory or ordinance. For in case of appointments the Presi- 
dent makes no nominations to the Board without previous conference and 
practical agreement with the professors in the department or allied de- 
partments concerned. The time, however, has now arrived to codify this 
practice and establish it as a matter of professorial right. And at the 
same time the right of the professors to share in other ways in the govern- 
ment and administration of the faculties or colleges to which they belong, 
and so far as practicable of the entire University itself, needs to be spe- 
cifically recognized and formally confirmed. 

"Towards this goal the University has been gradually tending for some 
years past. There may not have been a distinct consciousness of it in 
the general mind of the academic community, but there has been a vague 
yearning against a background of dissatisfaction and a foreground of hope. 
The situation will be brought to the consciousness of itself and crystallized 
in and through the idea and program of professorial participation in the 
management and control of the University. 

"The plan to be proposed is the modification and extension of an idea 
and organization already in successful operation. Professors sit, deliber- 
ate, and vote with trustees in the administrative councils which manage 
the affairs of the University Library and of the Medical College in New 
Yoriv. The professors are elected by their colleagues for a term of two 
or three years, and the trustees are similarly chosen by the Board of 
Trustees. These councils are merely advisory bodies whose resolutions 
come as recommendations to the Board of Trustees or to the Executive 
Committee, but in practice these recommendations of the men selected by 
the Board and by the Faculty to keep in intimate touch with the affairs 
of those great departments of the University and to dispose of them in 
the combined light of business and educational experience, are regarded 
by the Board as expressions of the highest wisdom available under the 
circumstances and are regularly approved, or, if not approved at once, 
merely referred back in special cases for further consideration in view of 
some new contingency or some unforeseen bearing upon the general policy 
of the University. . . . 

"The President recommends that a council of substantially this type 
be as soon as possible established for every college in Cornell Univer- 
sity. . . . Whether the professorial members of the council outnumber, 
or are outnumbered by, the trustee members is not a matter of any con- 



124 THE CORNELL PIAX 

sequenc'j if only it be understood that this is a scheme devolving genuine 
responsibility upon the professors for the administration and government 
of their collegiate unit of the University. If these councils are in practice 
to be as independent of the Executive Committee, and even of the full 
Board, as the Medical College Council in New York City, it will prob- 
ably be found necessary to allocate annually fixed portions of the income 
of the University to the different colleges. And with the existing dis- 
tribution of funds as basis this assignment should not be an impossible 
task. 

"This is a plan of partnership between trustees and professors for the 
government and administration of the University. It is not the German 
system, which has no board of trustees, nor the English system, in which 
the professors are the corporation, but it is a modification of the American 
system in which the trustees voluntarily invest the professors with a share 
of their own powers and functions, devolving on them corresponding 
responsibilities, and guarantee them the maximum of authority, inde- 
pendence, and institutional control which seems compatible with the 
American idea of university organization and government. 

"To these councils would be assigned the duty of dealing with all busi- 
ness of every kind affecting the several colleges. Whatever business now 
comes before the Executive Committee or the Board of Trustees affecting 
Sibley College or the College of Arts and Sciences or any other college of 
the University would be taken up by the appropriate council and settled 
in the form of resolutions which would be sent to the trustees for final 
approval and ratification. In time the councils would undoubtedly be 
empowererl by the Board of Trustees to dispose definitely of routine busi- 
ness and minor affairs reporting only their action to the trustees. . . . 

"Not only should the term of office of professorial members of the council 
be limited, but professors should be ineligible for more than one re-election. 
The object of this restriction is to keep the faculty in general in close 
touch with the council. And the President should be required (as he is 
not now in the case of the i\Iedical College Council) to submit to the council 
all nominations for appointments in order that they may be voted on and 
the record of the vote sent to the Board of Trustees. For the reform 
here discussed involves the surrender of power not only by the trustees 
but also by the President, the supreme object being to secure, by means 
of the representative system applied to faculties, effective professorial 
participation in the administration and government of the University. 

"The President recommends that the foregoing scheme for taking the 



PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 1^5 

professoriate into partnership with the trustees in the government and 
administration of the University by means of college councils composed of 
representatives of both be adopted by the Board of Trustees at the earliest 
practicable date. Some features of the scheme may need modification, but 
it will be easy to determine what changes are advisable after trustees and 
professors have got together in councils for the transaction of the business 
of the different collegiate units of the University. 

"A further step in the same direction should also be taken at the present 
time. Under the existing statutes the Deans of the Faculties are ap- 
pointed by the Board of Trustees on the nomination of the President. The 
Faculty has indeed some voice in the matter, for it votes on the nomina- 
tion of the President and sends the record of its vote to the Board of 
Trustees. But the time has arrived when the right of the Faculty to 
select its OAvn chief oflBcer should be recognized and confirmed. The Presi- 
dent recommends that the statute be amended so as to invest the Faculty 
with exclusive power in this regard." 

Practicable Solutions 

The Cornell Plan provides for the faculty, as President Schur- 
man says, the maximum of authority, independence, and institu- 
tional control compatible with the American system of university 
organization. Progressive steps toward such a result would be 
preferable to the full measure in some cases, and, evidently, only 
its principles, not its particular arrangements, apply to most cases. 

A feasible application of the principles to a typical state uni- 
versity having a board of regents of about nine members, and 
six or seven different faculties for its respective colleges and schools, 
is suggested for the convenience of the reader, as either a point 
of rest or a starting point for his own judgment. This sugges- 
tion comprises two distinct parts, — one to secure a reasonable co- 
oj^eration between board of regents and faculty, the other to ad- 
just relations between president and faculty : 

(a) The board of regents could invite representatives of the 
faculty to sit with it during sessions in which business involving 
the main objects of the university is considered. There is other 
business ancillary to those objects (investment of permanent funds, 



126 PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 

etc.) for which the faculty has no responsibilit)^^ and in which it 
need have no part: the principle stated by President Schurman 
is^ that "the men who attend to this business shall not use theii 
position to subject the faculty to extrinsic control/' The repre- 
sentatives of the faculty, under present laws, could have only 
voice without voting power, but that should be sufficient. Each of 
suitable divisions of the general faculty would elect one represent- 
ative, except that the College of Arts and Sciences should elect 
two, one chosen by the teachers of philosophy and the humanities 
and social sciences, the other by the teachers of mathematics and 
the physical sciences. The term of office should be two years with 
ineligibility for more than one consecutive re-election. Only full 
professors and associate professors should be eligible ; but all mem- 
bers of each faculty appointed for more than one year should vote 
in choosing its representative, or the representative of the divi- 
sion in which it might be included. 

The joint council of representatives of faculty and board for 
each of the divisions of the university^ recommended for Cornell, 
would be inexpedient and superfluous for a comparatively small 
and compact board of regents. The main purpose of those coun- 
cils in the Cornell plan would be fulfilled by the second part of 
the proposal here submitted: 

(b) The faculty of each college or school should elect a suitable 
(small) number of representatives including its representative to 
the board of regents and its dean, to constitute a council for that 
college. Qualifications and terms should be the same as for rep- 
resentatives to the board of regents. The council for the general 
faculty should consist of all the representatives to the board of 
regents and its dean, and, if desired, not more than three mem- 
bers at large elected by the general faculty. These councils would 
supercede the executive committees of faculties, now in vogue. 

Measures might arise indifferently in council or in faculty. 
Action within its jurisdiction taken by any council should have 
force until and unless annulled by its faculty, and all acts should 



PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 1^7 

ha reported to its faculty. Proper restrictions should also be pro- 
vided; for example, should requirements for degrees be enacted 
only by the general faculty? Either the president or its council 
should have power to call each faculty to convene in special ses- 
sion. The faculty's dean might also have that power independently 
of the council. The regnilar chairman of each council might be 
the dean of its faculty, or a chairman elected by the council, though 
the president when present might preside if he desired to do so.* 
It would be well to have the same secretary for all the faculties 
and for the council of the general faculty, who should report to 
the general faculty all important acts of the faculty of each college 
and school, and all the acts of the council of the general faculty. 

Every teacher should have the right to sit with his proper fac- 
ulty and should have the privilege of the floor, but only pro- 
fessors and instructors appointed for more than one year should 
vote. If the total number of professors and instructors in the uni- 
versity would make a general faculty of a size too cumbersome for 
effective operation, membership in the general faculty should be 
correspondingly restricted. Such is the case with the larger uni- 
versities^: the average number of professors and instructors in the 
dozen largest is over four hundred. There would be self-adjust- 
ing compensations for those excluded from the general faculty, 
if more and more independence in their own affairs be given the 
larger colleges and schools as membership in the general faculty 
becomes limited to higher ranks of the professoriate. As the total 
number in the teaching staffs goes beyond five, six, or seven hun- 
dred, the general faculty might well become a senate of the 
university, and be composed of only full professors and associate 
professors. Such a senate should have high but restricted juris- 
diction, and the respective faculties of the (in this case) very 
large divisions of the university should be autonomous for all 
ordinary business. Whether or not legislation affecting exclu- 
sively only one college or school may be enacted, without the ap- 



*See page 225. 



128 PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 

proval of its faciilt3\ by the general faculty; and whether or not 
some such legislation (e. g., its entrance or degree requirements) 
must be either enacted or approved by the general faculty, are 
questions* to be decided largely according to the size and com- 



*I have observed various organic statutes upon such points that represent 
either confused thought or inaccurate expression. A statute of this kind, 
together with an interpretation of its vague terms, causes a peculiar situa- 
tion in a well known university. I did not verify in any records the 
account of the interpretation, received from a full professor in the institu- 
tion; the main point is the law as it is written. 

The organic statutes of a certain state university include, as printed 
in its catalog: "Legislation exclusively affecting any department [used 
in the sense of college or school — see page 76] shall originate in the faculty 
of that department and in no other faculty, but shall not be effective until 
approved by the General Faculty. Action affecting more than one depart- 
ment may be taken only by the General Faculty. No regulation concern- 
ing requirements for admission or degrees shall become operative until 
approved by the General Faculty." It happened that the faculty of Arts 
and Sciences studied out a measure affecting requirements for degrees, 
which was submitted in the general faculty. The general faculty enacted 
the measure. Certain opponents consulted the president, contending that 
the procedure had been illegal, and the president sustained that contention. 

It is not quite clear which of two contradictory theories may have been 
adopted in so construing the words of the statute: (1) It probably 
was contended that the degree requirements for a division of the univer- 
sity "exclusively affect" that division and do not concern the university 
as & whole, and that therefore the general faculty had no authority under 
the provision, "Action affecting more than one department may be taken 
only by the General Faculty"; also that the provision, "No regulation 
concerning requirements for degrees shall become operative until approved 
by the General Faculty," did not assign degree requirements to the juris- 
diction of the general faculty, but that the word "approved" should be 
construed as confining the power of the general faculty solely to approving 
or disapproving requirements sent to it piecemeal by the division faculties; 
and finally, that some parts of the legislation in question had not "orig- 
inated" in the several faculties respectively "exclusively affected." Or 
(2) it may have been contended that the procedure was illegal because 
the legislation had not "originated" in the general faculty. This is im- 
probable, because it could be held only by interpreting "shall not become 
operative until approved" to mean simply "shall be enacted only by," 
together with an analogical stretching of the provision, "legislation exclu- 
sively affecting a department shall originate in the faculty of that depart- 
ment/' to mean "legislation exclusively within the jurisdiction of any 
faculty shall originate in that faculty." We may assume that the con- 
struction first stated was adopted. The episode, however, is immaterial; 



PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 129 

plexity of the institution, and there is no need that the ordinance 
be the same for every division of the university. Uniformity for 
disparate conditions is one of the ear-marks of maladministration. 
Of course, action controling more than one faculty can be taken 
only by the general faculty. 

The main thing in the second part of this plan is a proper ad- 
justment of relations between the president and the faculties. 
Every faculty should always have been so treated by regents and 
president that it would feel free to send to either any recommen- 
dation it deemed important and had deliberately adopted. Dis- 
organization is profound where that is not the case. But this 
mere privilege of petition as it were, is not enough. It is the 
ordinary experience of many faculties, to be informed of final en- 



it merely illustrates one of many absurd predicaments involved in a stat- 
ute conceived or expressed in any such fashion. 

The point to be controlled by such a statute is the jurisdiction for final 
action. The word originate ought not to be employed at all. In a par- 
liamentary sense a matter originates in a legislative body when it is moved 
in it by a member thereof. The origin of an idea in an historical sense is 
absurdly irrelevant. Yet the statute we are considering indicates a delib- 
erate intention tantamount to prohibiting the right of petition or sug- 
gestion by one special faculty to another or to the general faculty. It is 
to be observed that the quoted statute deprives every division faculty of 
authority to conclude any measure whatsoever, — the words are, "legisla- 
tion exclusively affecting any department shall not be effective until ap- 
proved by the General Faculty"; and legislation not exclusively affecting 
the division cannot "originate," that is be considered, in it at all. Hence 
this specimen of a certain university's organic law, either by intention or 
by loose thinking and lack of the command of language necessary for 
framing a good law, makes the faculty of arts and sciences, for instance, 
powerless to do anything except petition the general faculty, and makes 
the general faculty powerless to do anything affecting exclusively a divi- 
sion faculty except "approve" measures "originated" by that divi- 
sion faculty. Nothing is said about amendments, and I dare not surmize. 
A curious crux would be involved: all legislation exclusively affecting a 
special faculty must originate in it; when submitted to the general faculty 
for the required approval, if an amendment were proposed there, could 
the question even be referred back to the special faculty? Could the 
particular faculty act on any matter not "originated" by it? All this 
is merely an example of the troubles and absurdities involved in laws 
fabricated in the manner of this specimen. 



130 PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 

actments affecting their work without any previous intimation, to 
say nothing of previous consultation with and approval by them. 
The wisest presidents do not lead governing boards to flash edicts 
to faculties in that startling way; but there are few faculties that 
have not been thus disconcerted, and some are habituated to ex- 
pect nothing else. It would be vastly better to recognize every- 
where in an institutional manner what is now practiced merely as 
an act of grace and prudence in some institutions while favored 
by fortune with gracious and prudent presidents. 

The president should present to each faculty, or to its council, 
every measure to be proposed by him to the board of regents, 
affecting that college or school, — and to the general faculty, or to 
its council, for affairs of the entire university. The approval or 
disapproval of the faculty should be reported in writing to the 
board of regents by the faculty's representative to the board, in 
case the president did not see fit to withdraw the proposal after 
hearing the reasons for the faculty's dissent. Minority opinions 
should be similarly reported in the exceptional cases when that 
might be requested by the minority. If a measure proposed by 
some member of a faculty or of its council were adopted with the 
president's concurrence, the procedure v/ould be the same as if it 
had originated with the president, in case the nature of the meas- 
ure required any final action by the board of regents. If a meas- 
ure proposed by some member of a faculty or of its council were 
adopted without the president's approval, the president's dissent 
should be reported to the board of regents or to the faculty, ac- 
cording to the place of origin and nature of the measure. 

The institution of these procedures would not diminish or in- 
terfere with the proper leadership or necessary authority of the 
president. On the contrary, the secrecy and surprises of the preva- 
lent procedure prevent the natural cordiality and confidence that 
the president often deserves, and the character of his influence is 
degraded by suspicions and misunderstandings. Acts that would 
have been approved if understood, incite murmurs and accusa- 



PriACTICABl.E SOLUTIONS 131 

fcions against him and also against fellow members of the faculty. 
Eepellant or antagonistic attitudes spring up among those who 
would otherwise be co-workers. The proposed procedure would 
remove the main cause of carping criticism and concomitant slan- 
der, and it would engender and foster a proper sense of professional 
decorum and individual responsibility for self-control and intelli- 
gent initiative. It is already practiced substantially by presidents 
who invite and seek and justly consider criticism and suggestions. 
But personal invitation and consultation cannot secure the right 
conditions. No matter how sincere the president may be in his 
personal desire and effort to stir up the members of the faculties 
from subjection to or dependence upon external judgment and con- 
trol, it is practically impossible to elicit the needed response as 
long as the form of procedure is arbitrary. It is true that a gen- 
uine organizer of workers for any sort of spiritual results should 
have the power of communicating his own feeling for the dignity 
of individuality, and that sense of personal responsibility which 
is essential to true success in such work; but so inveterate are the 
suspicions of external control that no mere personal influence can 
transform the passive ranks into truly organized individuals aroused 
to intelligent co-operation and personal responsibility for wise coun- 
sels, self-criticism, and self-control. Formal recognition by the 
supreme authority of the existence of such duties and opportuni- 
ties is needed. 

It is, therefore, necessary to establish in an institutional way 
provisions for securing the advice of the faculty, — with the main 
purpose of fostering in its members a free interest in the entire 
scope of their joint professional work and a sense of individual 
responsibility for the right conduct of that work. It is not privi- 
leges, but duties and opportunities of high service that should be 
most considered. 

It would be very unfortunate if the ^^concession'^ (as it is termed 
by some) were to be withheld until extorted by belligerent de- 
mands. The attitude and spirit consequent to such an origin 



132 PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 

might be as obnoxious to true organization as the inert and stag- 
nant condition, and might lead to vicious uses of privileges wrested 
from "oppressors." The less tumult and insistence for rights and 
privileges manifested in the faculty, the more readily and confi- 
dently should governing board and president institute reasonable 
arrangements for the faeult/s participation in the government of 
the university. In the work of a university, satisfactory results 
will not flow from promulgated mandates concerning which the 
professoriate has taken no previous thought. In a university the 
control should not be an arbitrary control of a passive rank and 
file, nor should decisions be formed without the advice (and gen- 
erally the concurrence) of those who are to perform the complex 
and delicate work for which the entire system exists. "Freedom/' 
says Chancellor Strong, "is the very breath and life of a university 
or college. It is sensitive to any change of atmosphere or of 
standards, for it, in common with the church and the home, has 
great influence upon the spiritual life of the individual and the 
community. If an institution is independent at all, u must be 
really independent, and must be governed from within in accord- 
ance with the unity of the institution."* Jolin Stuart Mill has 
well said, whatever crushes individuality is despotism by whatever 
name it be called. 

It is not a valid objection to allege in any particular case, that 
the members of the faculty are personally unfit to participate on 
co-ordinate terms in counsels for the government of a university. 
For if it were true, it would be equally true of the persons who 
had selected and disorganized the faculty, and all concerned would 
need the more to begin a procedure which protects both sides from 
misunderstandings and tends to uplift and steady every partici- 
pant. "Be noble and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleep- 



*Tliis was said in a different connection, but is equally true as here 
cited. Chancellor Strong had been arguing against a central board of 
control, and drew from the principles quoted the valid conclusion that a, 
university or college requires "a governing board whose eye is single to the 
welfare of that institution and no other." 



PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 133 

ing but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own.'^ It 
should be candidly acknowledged that many astonishingly foolish 
regulations for the government of students do seem to reveal some 
faculties as incompetent legislators. But men who have an inti- 
mate knowledge of these matters know that such contemptible 
abuses usually originate with some dean appointed by the presi- 
dent or some ill-chosen committee appointed by the president or 
the president's dean. They know how the measures are pressed 
or slip through an adopting vote over the faint protests of mem- 
bers who, though thoroughly discouraged by present methods in 
faculty meetings, would exercise their natural influence under a 
different regime. 

It will seem to some that the president's necessary and most es- 
sential authority might be endangered if his nominations to the 
board of regents for advancements and new faculty appointments 
were submitted to the council of the faculty, and the council's 
approval or dissent reported to the board. I do not believe any 
reservation needs to be made for that particular business. The 
president's nominations, duly explained in council, would gener- 
ally be cordially approved. In exceptional instances the advice of 
members of the council might lead to some change in the presi- 
dent's own opinion. Only in verv' rare cases would the council's 
dissent have to be reported. If that happened, the board of re- 
gents must uphold the president.* But it is far better that the 
council's rarely occurring difference in opinion should be known 
in an open and orderly way, than that frequent misunderstand- 
ings of acts that take the faculty by surprise should be whis- 
pered or growled about. Yet such is the alternative, even though 
the president honestly seeks the private advice of individuals about 
his recommendations for advancements and for filling or making 
vacancies. If the faculty knew that every nomination had been 
explained to a council chosen by themselves, they would feel that 



*See page 204. 



131: PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 

the president's proposals had been justified before their own rep- 
resentatives. This would be sufficient to cause the reasonable ma- 
jorit}^ to feel confident and satisfied with the action taken in these 
delicate affairs. It would be better for the faculty to take no ac- 
tion itself^ but to make the matter of approving presidential nomi- 
nations a privileged order of business in the council, conclusions 
being reported to but not subject to approval by its faculty. There 
are too man}^ instructors and assistant professors in a faculty for 
votes on advancements to be appropriately taken in that body, 
whereas the council would consist only of full and associate pro- 
fessors. 

In like manner, the preliminary data for the annual budget 
should be elaborated by the president in consultation with the 
council for each faculty — considering the reports and requests of 
all the departments in that division. The final adjustments nee- 
essarj^ to prepare the entire budget, as it will be presented by the 
president to the governing board, should be made in consultation 
with the council for the general faculty. Since each of the 
special councils would have one of its members sitting in the gen- 
eral council, its views and desires would be laiown and u.nder- 
stood in the general council through two channels, not only 
through the president's mind. Continuity of information in the 
general council being thus secured, there would usually be no oc- 
casion for communications from the separate councils to the board 
of regents concerning the budget. If the president rightly eom- 
prehended the manifold needs and held clearly before himself and 
hifc counsellors the total amount available, he could put his views 
so convincingly that approval would naturally follow, or his own 
first judgment on some point would be corrected by helpful dis- 
cussion. Sometimes the general council would decide to recom- 
mend the modification of some particular in the president's final 
decisions for the budget, upon which it could not agree with him; 
but it is probable that complete agreement would usually be 
reached. At all events, a general confidence and satisfaction 



THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY 135 

would prevail, which is simply impossible when the president 
merely receives departmental petitions and consults with indi- 
viduals whom he may call to him. 

These special functions of the proposed councils would safe- 
guard the president against deplorable misunderstandings more 
than any other arrangement that could be devised. It should be 
feared only by presidents who make unjustifiable nominations or 
budgets. 

The plan I have proposed seems to me tc be a good and ade- 
quate one. It would be truly remedial, and it would be safe. 
Other good arrangements, if need for more should be experienced, 
might be left to grow from it. It has the merit of simplicity. It 
has the merit, that either or both of its two parts could be insti- 
tuted. Its first part could be put into immediate operation by any 
board of regents disposed to recognize the faculty as a body hav- 
ing an essential independent responsibility to the university, not 
merely the responsibility of its members to their employer. Its 
second part could be put into operation by any president who 
would rather be a trusted leader than an alienated commander. 
The system proposed would soon make the test: do his opinions 
receive favorable consideration for their merit, or must they be 
backed by his authority? Xo worthy president need fear the test. 

The Final Responsibility 

It is not necessary that members of the governing board should 
judge or know much about educational processes, or the technical 
sides of teaching work. The analogy between the board of re- 
gents for a university and a board of directors for a business en- 
terprise is very slight. The proper relation between the former 
and the faculty is totally different from that between the latter 
and their employes. The advice of industrial experts about uni- 
versity organization is often thoroughly vitiated by misconcep- 
tions of this fundamental point. But it is incumbent on every 
member of the governing board of a college or university to know 



136 THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY 

as nnich as he can learn about organizing such an institution in 
accordance with its true and proper nature, and about the main 
tests of success or failure in the administration of the institution 
as organized. His final responsibilit}^ is to learn the truth about 
those matters and to act wisely and resolutely in accordance there- 
with. It is astonishing how often the weightier matters have been 
neglected or violated by regents and presidents entirely absorbed 
in securing funds for buildings. There is no good reason why 
the one should have been left undone in the doing of the other. 
If there were any conflict, the weightier matters ought to be first 
attended to; but the development of the physical plant would al- 
ways be greatly assisted by a sound organization and due regard 
for the vital interests of the faculty, both personal and profes- 
sional. It is, therefore, not an excuse but only an explanation to 
plead, as did Dr. Eichard Jones, Trustee of Iowa College, in con- 
gratulating the University of Illinois on the apparent completion 
of its "magnificent plant"^ : 

"The erection of the plant was a work of such paramount im- 
portance that the teaching professor, even though there were scores 
of him, occupied for the time a place of comparative unimportance. 
But now that the plant is established, and due honor for the great 
vfork worthily bestowed, there will be leisure for observing that 
a plant is of small value without the best possible instruction. And 
thus it will come about naturally and easily that the individual 
professor will come into his own. The administration, no longer 
under the necessity of securing funds for new buildings, can now 
devote its energies to making attractive to the professor the aca- 
demic career, to the professor wlio finds his joy in life in his 
work as a professor rather than in a deanship or any form of ad- 
ministrative work — especially affording him opportunity and leis- 
ure, that is freedom from mere drudger}^, for doing some re- 
search work of his own, which is to the university professor the 
breath of life. . . . And as the development of the University 
of Illinois is typical of that of many other American universities. 



THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY 137 

except in the iiniisual rapidity of its development, we may per- 
haps conclude that the pains endured by the university professor 
generally are ^growing pains^ and await the day of deliverance. 
But let us not deny the pain, even on this happy occasion, when 
evidences of wonderful growth meet the eye and statistics greet the 
ear and the atmosphere is filled with the halo of the greater glory 
yet to dawn. . . . There is probably not an institution in all 
this great Mississippi Valley that could offer a professorship which 
would induce a professor, a full professor, of Oxford, for example, 
to resign, even leaving out of consideration any question of home 
and native land. Much yet remains to be done to make the aca- 
demic career as attractive and useful as it is possible for it to be." 

But let us take heart of grace from an inspiring sentence with 
which Dr. Jones concluded his salutation. It would make a fitting 
motto to be put in letters of gold on the walls of the counsel 
chambers of university regencies: 

"Happy they who live under an administration which Tcnows, 
which combines sweetness and light." 

And over against that saying of yesterday, I would put in the 
place of first honor the immortal proverb of Solomon : 

"Through wisdom is an house builded; 
And by understanding it is established: 
And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled 
With all precious and pleasant riches." 



III. BUSIIS'ESS MAKAGEMEFT. 

Although a college or imiversit}" cannot be administered in 
the spirit or in the manner of a business concern without ceasing 
to be a college or university^ intelligent and careful management 
of its business affairs is an imperative responsibility. Past neg- 
lect of that responsibility has precipitated throughout the whole 
country a startled and over-accentuated zeal for business manage- 
ment. Legislatures are beginning to take a hand, enacting re- 
formatory measures well intended but with ill-considered provi- 
sions. It is therefore peculiarly important for every state insti- 
tution that its governing board and chief executive should take 
counsel for establishing without delay a business management 
properly adapted to the work and purposes of the institution. If 
this is not done with careful deliberation and wisely, it is probable 
that some imitation of methods employed in manufactories will 
be imposed by external law, or be hurriedly adopted without 
proper understanding of what ^'efficiency" in a college or univer- 
sity is. 

Articles have been published criticizing the trustees of some 
privately endowed colleges for carelessness in making investments, 
and for unwarranted encroachments upon endowment funds to 
meet current expenses; but those points need no mention (as far 
as the writer knows) in reference to state institutions. For them, 
the law generally confines the investment of permanent funds to 
specified securities, and prohibits any expenditure from the prin- 
cipal of such funds for any other purpose whatsoever. The treas- 
urer is generally the State Treasurer. 

The investment of endowment funds call for financial expe- 
rience and exj)ert judgment; and the management of productive 
properties is a special branch of business. Those matters are not 
considered here. The writer probably knows less of them than 
the committees who have them in charge; there is less neglect of 



BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 139 

them, in spite of knowledge, than of any other responsibility of 
trustees; and state institutions have comparatively little of such 
business. The business management of a tax-supported institu- 
tion concerns the proper and effective expenditure of given re- 
sources, accounting conducive thereto, and the design and use and 
care of physical structures. In the truest sense, the main things 
in the business management of a college or university are not re- 
ferred to in the ordinary use of the term "business management." 
The business of a university being teaching and research, choice 
of the objects of those activities, the selection of the men who are 
to perform the work, the fixing of salaries, etc., are the main 
things. In that vital sense this entire study treats of the business 
management of institutioais of higher education. Unless the 
w^eightier matters are rightly managed, it is of very secondary im- 
portance how the accounts are kept or the buildings preserved. In 
the narrow sense of the term, thus distinguished, the business 
management of a college or university is not a thing to make 
much of a fuss about. Any man of good sense and a modicum 
of general business experience who understands even slightly what 
a university ought to be doing and knows what its business affairs 
consist of, could (with the help of a competent accountant) es- 
tablish a proper business management as soon as he gives attention 
to the matter and is given the requisite authority. 

Boohheeping 

The first thing to do is to install a real set of books, in place 
of the mere cash book and collection of registers usually found. 
In some States methods employed in the State Comptroller's office 
would require, in addition to the useful books, the continued re- 
porting to that office of the jumbled list of vouchers, worthless 
except for its indication that a total amount was lawfully ex- 
pended. Also, the state officer may have and may occasionally ex- 
ercise an authority to refuse or reduce some warrant, and thereby 
require the making of compensating entries. But what of it ? It 



140 BOOKKEEPING 

is "wasted motion," yet so insignificant in comparison with the se- 
rious waste caused hy a weak or foolish member of the faculty, or 
by some mistaken interference on the part of a dean or president 
with the real work of faculty and students, that the trouble is not 
worth groaning about. 

University officers have allowed themselves to be unduly dis- 
couraged by this trouble with the state government's methods of 
accounting. Mr. J. C. Christensen, after his appointment about 
two years ago to be Financial Secretary of Kansas State Agricul- 
tural College, visited many institutions in other States, and made 
a useful and generally very sound report on University Business 
Administration before a Conference of Business Officers of the 
State Universities and Colleges of the Middle West, held at Chi- 
coga in January, 1912. He correctly reported: "My inspection 
has shown that there are very few States in w^iich the business 
of educational institutions is not hampered by obsolete and cum- 
bersome methods of state accounting." But he added : "It is im- 
possible for a state institution to install a satisfactory system of 
accounting unless modern methods prevail at the State House." I 
beg to differ. It is not impossible — only a little more laborious. 
If your business manager and his bookkeepers do not know how 
to open and keep the needed system of books, and at the same 
time keep — on the side — whatever may be demanded by the prac- 
tice at the State House, simply employ a competent accountant to 
teach them how to do it. But be sure that the expert accountant 
is not left free to choose the accounts that are to be opened. It is for 
the president and business manager to tell the accountant, after 
due mutual consultation, what they want to know from the books 
of the institution, and then, it is for the expert to show the book- 
keepers how to open and keep a system of books that will always 
3deld the desired information. If left to himself the expert account- 
ant might install a system that would be very helpful to an automo- 
bile factory, but positively injurious to a university. 

Without going into any technical details of bookkeeping, I may 



BOOKKEEPING 141 

mention some of the things that the books of a university ought 
to be ready to yield at a moment's notice : 

1. A bahnnce sheet giving assets and liabilities, — with support- 

ing schedules. 

2. A statement of revenue and expense for every classification, — 

and their relation to the corresponding month or period 
of the previous year. 

3. A statement of receipts and disbursements, — properly 

analyzed. 

It depends on the promptness vs^ith which bills for merchandise 
received or for service rendered are 0. K.'d and paid, and on the 
punctuality with which accrued resources are collected^ how far a 
statement of revenue and expense will differ from a statement of 
receipts and disbursements. After explaining at a !N'ational Con- 
ference of College and University Trustees the need of monthly 
statements of revenue and expense, Mr. Ernest Reckitt, Certified 
Public Accountant, Chicago, 111., remarked : "Please note that I do 
not use the term receipts and disbursements. Many colleges have 
no other book of original entry than their cash book, and under 
this system no intelligent comparison can be made. Every lia- 
bility, either for goods purchased or for services reeeivedj should 
be entered in the month it was incurred, and the same argument 
holds as to your revenue." 

Not only must the bookkeeper furnish such data, but they must 
be intelligently used. Each month the expenses, as analyzed by the 
system of accounts kept, should be scrutinized by the president 
and the business manager. Copies should be sent also to the 
regents, and to the council for each faculty (where the councils 
proposed in the preceding chapter are instituted, otherwise to 
the dean of each faculty), and the chairman of each department 
should receive every month an itemized statement for his depart- 
ment. If the pecuniary affairs of the institution are to be under- 
stood and held in hand, there must be continual comparison with 



142 THE BUDGET 

the corresponding data for previous years, especiall}^ for the last 
year. If the system of bookkeeping is what it should be, all needed 
information will be given quickly and with ease. iSTo competent 
managers of any large business would dream of trying to get along 
without this. Scrupulous promptness should be exacted of every- 
one authorized to incur expense, to 0. K. and deliver to the book- 
keepers every bill instantly upon receipt of the goods or the com- 
pletion of the service for which the bill was rendered. If all of 
these reasonable precautions are not taken, disorder and deficits are 
to be expected. 

The classified statement of revenue and expense for each fiscal 
year is the only safe basis upon which to frame the budget for the 
following year. Some remarks upon the proper nature of that im- 
portant document are in place here. 

The Budget 

The budget for an ensuing year seems to be adopted by the 
governing boards of many state universities as a rigid appropriation 
of its items. Just as appropriation bills are enacted by legisla- 
tuies; and the bookkeepers enter the respective appropriations as 
credits and enter charges against them, just as the state comp- 
troller treats the appropriations for each year made by the legis- 
lature. There is no help for this procedure in the case of the leg- 
islature — which meets, attempts to foresee all future necessities, 
makes rigid appropriations, and adjourns sine die. But why 
need the board of regents of a university or college undertake to 
prophesy so rigidly a year in advance, the expenditure for every 
department? The practice in this matter^ especially by state insti- 
tutions, would be different from what it is, if business methods 
were as much thought of as they are talked about. Of course, 
even the procedure of the legislature is temnered by a limited 
authority in governors to authorize deficiencies ; and boards of 
regents in emergencies revise their ^^appropriations.^^ But I be- 



THE BUDGET 143 

lieve a changed conception of and attitude toward the budget 
adopted for an ensuing year would conduce to better business 
management. 

The budget is an estimate. Why not treat it as such ? Genuine 
business methods would simply require that the person authorized 
to make the expenditures for each department of faculty and busi- 
ness affairs treated in the budget should not exceed the amount 
adopted as the estimate for that department unless an excess be 
approved by the president^ and that the president should be bound 
by the spirit of the original estimate. If desirable, the joint approval 
of some member of a finance committee of the board could be re- 
quired; but there should be no need of that. The right way is 
to give the president ample authority and hold him responsible 
for a wise use of discretionary powers. It is impossible to foresee 
all necessities, and the proper cost of some undertakings cannot 
be fixed in advance. The important point is the careful considera- 
tion of every monthly statement of revenues and expenses by all 
who are responsible for them. It is they who need to compare with 
the budget the statements furnished by the bookkeeper. The book- 
keeper is the last person in the university who needs to have any 
knowledge of the budget. The estimates of the budget have, 
indeed, no logical place in the accounts. 

There are various injurious consequences of regarding budgets 
as rigid appropriation bills. Each department is led to make its 
demand as high as possible to guard against unforseen needs. In 
order to prevent the lapsing of any part of an "appropriation", 
things are sometimes purchased for a purpose which is afterwards 
abandoned. If an estimate proves to be insufficient, some work 
of teachers and students may be crippled for a year, which could 
have been made effective by a small addition to the amount set 
down in the. budget. The waste measured by money is not the 
greatest damage. The reasons sometimes given for waiting until 
next year to correct an estimate of the budget, indicate a subtle 



144 BUSINESS MANAGER 

but deeper injury. Presidents have explained that though the 
means were available and the need clear, yet the "appropriation'^ 
could not be modified for one department without causing jealousy 
in all other departments. If that were true, the moral atmosphere 
of the institution would be corrupting to the youth who enter it, 
and it ought to be renovated or abolished. But that could not be 
true, if the institution were riehtly organized, and governed and 
administered sensibly. It would be impossible to conceive anvthincr 
more unbusinesslike than the attitude last alluded to, and it is 
idle to talk about business management until such ideas are re- 
nounced. 

Business Manager 

The proper general ideas and attitudes toward pecuniary and 
property affairs of the institution are not alone sufficient for the 
right management of such affairs. Expert care must be taken of 
them through a well organized department. The danger here is 
that business departments may be established and conducted as 
ends in themselves — not rightly subordinated to and in harmony 
with the educational work. A business manager should have his 
needed authority, but it would be better to let money be wasted than 
to set him up as coordinate with the president. The details of 
all business affairs should be within the province of the business 
manager, but he should not have unchecked authority to impose 
arrangements for his convenience or to suit his ideas of system and 
uniformity. The business management should conform with and 
subserve the real work for which alone all parts of the institution 
exist. For instance, all material for a laboratory should not be 
procured through the business manager^s store or purchasing office, 
if it be advantageous to the laboratory for its director to buy some 
things. Such matters should be adjusted by due consultation with 
each department, the business manager yielding his judgment 
to that of the chairman of the department, unless some principle, 
or considerable amount of money, seemed to him to be involved — 



BUSINESS MANAGER 145 

in which case the question should be referred to the president. 
There would be no difficulty in handling these petty affairs if 
right attitudes are assumed. 

The business manager of a university could not demonstrate 
incapacity more clearly than by desiring a stupid uniformity for 
disparate conditions. Because his office can advantageously pur- 
chase and store coal, brooms, and blackboard crayons, is no reason 
for wishing to buy the frogs for a physiology laboratory, or a cryst^iil 
or piece of special wire for a physics laboratory. Men who cannot 
make such distinctions, and want a ^'^purchasing agent" to buy 
everything, after a wasteful process of requisition and countersign- 
ing,* understand neither a university nor business. Such things 
should be sensibly arranged by the business manager. There need 
be no purchasing agent; but some office in the business manager^s 
department ought to buy what it can buy and store what it can 
store with clear advantage to the work of the institution, leav- 
ing many things with the departments of instruction and research. 
The librarian, for instance, should buy the books tor the library. 
Of course, a prompt presentation of all bills at the accounting office 
should be required of everyone authorized to incur any expense. 
There are purchasing agents who save less in buying advantageously 
coal, lawn mowers, stenographers^ note books, lead pencils, etc., than 
they waste in making thousands of petty purchases under regula- 
tions that consume ten dollars^ worth of high priced time for every 
dollar spent on such special items — taking no account of the strain 
upon the patience of the instructors or of the losses suffered by 
defenseless students. 

The reasonable adjustments to differing conditions, thus sug- 
gested, do not impair a proper centralization of business manage- 



*E. g., at the University of Wisconsin, every requisition for the purchase 
of supplies must, it is said, be approved by the executive committee of the 
board of regents, the president, the secretary, the dean, and the head of 
the department. 



146 BUSINESS MANAGER 

ment ; on the contrary they would safeguard it against its besetting 
danger. There shonld be a responsible manager with due authority 
over all business offices ; but it behooves him to avoid all formalities 
and rig-idity that interfere with usefulness. Mr. Christensen, in the 
report mentioned above, explained and advised, in part, as follows: 

"Collesre and university authorities are apparently lacking in appre- 
ciation of the necessity for the proper organization of the business offices. 
This accounts for a great deal of the looseness in the business adminis- 
tration which has been found in several institutions. . . . With the 
growth of a university and with the constant increase of business matters, 
the business offices have sometimes been organized into several distinct 
departments, but without a head over all of the departments. One uni- 
versity recently put in a purchasing department, but made the fatal error 
of not making that department a part of the business organization of the 
university. . . . This university has now made the university treas- 
urer the business manager, and the president acts through him. All busi- 
ness offices are under control of the business manager. 

"An objectionable manner of conducting business in several universities 
has been shown in the tendency to scatter through a number of offices 
what should be done in one office and under one authority. . . . This 
scattering has frequently been caused by powerful deans or heads of de- 
partments assuming powers and duties which properly belong to the execu- 
tive offices of the university. In some institutions the powers and duties 
of a dean are not clearly defined, and this lack of definite authority has 
caused confusion in the business offices. Without doubt much of the detail 
work which is now being done in the offices of deans and heada of depart- 
ments, in many institutions, could be better done in central offices under 
central authority. . . . 

"The business manager should be of sufficient caliber to assume entire 
control of all business matters, and all officers who deal with business 
matters should report to him. The business manager would also be the 
logical secretary of the Board of Kegents, or Trustees. It is highly im- 
portant that the business manager be present at all meetings of the Board 
so that he may see that all matters relating to the business side of the 
university are properly looked after. It is seldom satisfactory to delegate 
such matters to persons who do not have a first-hand knowledge of the 
things to be presented." 



BUSINESS MANAGER 147 

The important points are that the business manager, whether 
he be the secretan^ of the board or not, be present when business 
affairs are considered, and that he be of ^^sufficient caliber/' Mr. 
Christensen gave an "outline of business organization/' based on 
^'observations of some of the best organization discovered on my 
recent trip," differing little from the following: 

Business Manager 

The Business Manager is the head of business affairs. The Board 
of Regents and the President act through him in the details of business 
matters. 

1. Business Office 

a. Accounting Department: 

Chief clerk, cashier^ voucher clerk, bookkeeper, inventory 
clerk, etc. It is assumed that all payments are made by 
voucher-checks of good form with stub record. There should 
be strict checking with the registrar's ojffice of all bills issued 
for matriculation fees, etc., properly classified. The cashier 
should give receipt for every cent taken by him, and keep 
carbon duplicate of the receipt. This will facilitate checking 
when the office is audited. 

b. Purchasing and Storeroom Department: 

Order clerk, stenographer, receiving clerk, storekeeper, etc. 

2. Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds 

In charge of physical plant, and superintendent of construction. 
Clerk, draftsman, inspector, etc. 

a. Heat, Power, Light, Water: 

Superintendent, engineers, laborers. 

b. Repair Shops: 

Carpenters, painters, plumbers, electricians, repair gangs, etc. 

c. Janitors : 

Head janitor, assistants, cleaners, caretakers. 

d. Police and Fire Protection: 

Watchmen. 

e. Grounds, Roads, and Walks: 

Head gardener, laborers. 



148 GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 

3. Consulting Engineers and Architects 

For all original planning, and for considerable alterations of 
buildings or grounds. 

Grounds and Buildings. 

State -universities have suffered mncli from a lack of provident 
attention to future need for ground, and to the designing, location, 
and quality of buildings. One of the causes of this neglect has 
probably been the short term of the regent's ofiBce. In Texas, the 
two-years' term of the past has just been changed by constitutional 
amendment to six years.* It was perfectly evident many years 
ago that the meager campus of the University of Texas could not 
contain the institution much longer. Strikingly suitable ground 
lay to the east, unoccupied and purchasable at low prices. When 
the site of the University was originally fixed, the cost to the State 
of providing a campus of proper size would have been comparatively 
nothing. The legislature at that time acted as it did from sheer 
lack of competent advice. Had they understood that forty acres 
would certainly prove to be insufficient, they would have set aside 
a suitable area. The time has now come when the ground to the 
east must be bought at high prices, wasting also many houses that 
have been built upon it; or the University must be scattered in 
non-contigious localities; or the entire institution must be moved 
to a new suburban site, sacrificing its own present buildings, and, 
far worse, many other establishments, public and private, that 
have been founded in reliance upon the permanence of the Univer- 
sity's location. 

Speaking of the grouping of buildings, the laying-out and deco- 
ration of a university's unoccupied grounds, and the provision of an 
amount of land sufficient for future needs, President Eliot gives 
wise and needed counsel : 



'See page 23. 



GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 149 

"The beauty of university buildings, of their site, and of the grounds 
about them, makes an important part of its teaching. On this account 
urban universities whose buildings are situated in compactly built streets 
can never exert on their students all the beneficial influences which sub- 
urban or rural universities can exert. Every large university should own 
and maintain in good order decorated open spaces about its buildings, 
interior quadrangles between groups of buildings, gardens, and groves. 
Shabbiness and untidiness should never be permitted on university grounds. 
If the site provides wide prospects or beautiful vistas, these landscape 
beauties should be carefully utilized, and preserved from impairment by 
the growing up of trees, or the planting of buildings across the lines of 
view. In order to discharge well this function of university trustees, the 
board should obtain the best professional advice which the country affords, 
and is never justified in employing for local or political reasons, or in 
deference to the wishes of benefactors, any advisers about the designs of 
buildings, their sites, and the lay-out of grounds, who are not of the first 
class. In accepting the gift of a building, prudent trustees will always 
make the condition that the design and site of the building shall be 
acceptable to the expert advisers of the board. Since architecture and 
landscape architecture have now become well recognized professions for 
highly trained men in the United States, it has become inexcusable in 
university trustees to erect buildings without the most careful possible 
consideration of their designs and of the relation of each building to its 
neighbors, or to plant buildings about their grounds without reference to 
the future buildings which the university is sure to need. . . . 

"They have too much neglected the study of order and beauty in the 
lay-out of university grounds, and have incurred great losses through the 
erection of buildings which were not fireproof. They needed spacious 
shelters so urgently, that they ran the risk of building large combustible 
structures instead of smaller fireproof ones. These conditions of poverty 
are now passing away, and it is emphatically the duty of university 
trustees to erect buildings, lay out their open grounds, and plant them 
with reference to the sure centuries of affectionate use. University grounds 
and buildings can now be arranged to last, which seems to be more than 
can be said for any other buildings in the United States, with the possible 
exception of some government buildings and some country churches. It 
may not be very important to study carefully the design of a house, fac- 
tory, shop, oflSce building, or church, which is likely to be burnt, torn down, 
or converted to new uses within seventy years; but grounds and buildings 



150 FINANCIAL REPORTS 

which really have a chance to prove permanent ought to be studied in the 
most careful manner possible. Because of the importance of this function 
of university trustees, it is highly desirable, whenever the conditions 
permit, that trustees should be selected who feel a real affection for the 
university which they are to govern, and for its surroundings. Strangers 
will, as a rule, not make so good trustees as children of the house. 

"The trustees have a somewhat difficult duty in regard to the acceptance 
of gifts. There are gifts which it is highly inexpedient to accept, — as, for 
instance, a gift for a specified object which is not of a surely durable 
nature, and yet comes without discretion for the trustees as to other 
applications of the gift when its specified use shall be no longer possible, 
or a gift which would impair religious toleration or academic freedom, or 
a gift which cannot be utilized without bringing new charges on the 
university itself. The trustees must endeavor to divert benefactors away 
from any such gifts as these and towards safe objects, or must procure 
modification of the terms of proposed gifts, so that these dangers may be 
avoided. . . . 

"A university should not be carried on, like a business corporation, with 
any policy of laying up undivided profits, or of setting aside unused 
income for emergencies or future needs. On the contrary, it should 
endeavor to expend all its available income. While it should never live 
beyond its means, it has no call to accumulate for the benefit of future 
generations. For enlargements, new equipments, and the occupation of 
new fields of usefulness, it should rely on new endowments or new annual 
receipts; or, if it be a State university, on new appropriations. In en- 
deavoring to use all its proper income, it may sometimes incur a deficit; 
but it should forthwith take measures to prevent the recurrence of such a 
deficit, since habitual deficits, however incurred, must be charged either 
to past endowments which ought to be held unimpaired, or to future 
resources which are only hoped for. Each of these methods is objection- 
able in itself, and each sets a bad example to educational, charitable, and 
religious institutions." 

Financial Reports and Audits 

Tax-supported institutions are required by law to print annually 
a detailed statement of receipts and disbursements. These state- 
ments in many cases are merely a list of vouchers, serving few 
of the proper purposes of a financial report. Of endowed institu- 



FINANCIAL REPORTS 151 

tions President Pritchett says: ^-'The ^eat mass of institutions 
of higher learniner in the United States bearing the name college 
or university make no public accounting of the disposition of the 
moneys which they receive." Educational sincerity and power are 
connected in many ways with a clear and open acknowledgment 
of financial responsibilities and limitations. From every point of 
view it is good policy to publish full and clear reports, in which 
revenues and expenses are grouped under truly significant head- 
ings. Mr. William A. Dyche, Business Manager of Northwestern 
University, pointed out some years ago a very practical advantage 
secured to Harvard University by the character of its financial 
reports. The praise is merited by the feature expressly referred 
to^ if not for everything one should "wish to knoV^ : 

"President Eliot of Harvard was, I am told, the first educator who gave 
attention to the business office of his university. Under his direction the 
reports of Harvard University are models. You can learn anything you 
wish to know about the finances of Harvard by reading the annual report 
of its treasurer. Such a report, showing a long list of investments of 
endowment funds, with the interest earning of this year compared with 
that of the preceding year, inspires confidence. The prospective donor who 
reads one of Harvard's reports will never be afraid to trust it with his 
money." 

Are the accounts of your endowment funds so kept that the rev- 
enue from each is shown ? Is the uninvested portion of each fund 
shown and reported so that it may be made interest bearing with- 
out delay? Is the rate of interest of each investment shown, so 
that it may be a guide for future investments ? If you hold bonds 
bought above par, are you writing off each year the part of the 
premium corresponding to the number of years until their matur- 
ity? If you have an eye to ''prospective donors/^ not to mention 
other reasons, these questions should have affirmative answers. 

There is no need for detailed uniformity in the bookkeeping and 
published reports of different institutions; but it would be very 
advantageous for comparisons much needed by every institution, if 



152 FINANCIAL REPORTS 

all of them would make the report forms recommended by The 
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:* a general 
basis for their reports and the corresponding accounts in their 
bookkeeping. Some reformers will go to injurious extremes, aping 
industrial costs accounting, but there are certain thingrs in which 
all would naturally agree. The comparisons with other institu- 
tions that could be thus made available would be very serviceable. 
Speaking of such classifications of expenses, President Pritchett 
says: 

"What are the significant items of expense of a college? What group- 
ing of the numerous items of expenditure will give some fair estimate of 
the character of the college's method of expending its money? 

"It is clear that the answer to this inquiry is fundamental, and that it 
cannot be given wholly from the standpoint of an accountant. There is 
no gain to be had by presenting a series of statistics unless they warrant 
some conclusion concerning the operations which the expenditures rep- 
resent. 

"It seems clear, however, that a group of men composed in part of 
college ofl&cers and teachers, in part of the financial trustees responsible 
for administration, could agree upon such items as are significant. For 
example, a trustee of the college, as well as a student of education, would 
alike desire to know what part of the income of the college is spent in 
the payment of teachers' salaries, and what salaries the various grades 
of teachers receive. 

"Again, each of these would desire to know what the expense of a given 
department is and how much of this expense went into the employment 
of teachers, how much into laboratory or library maintenance." 

President Pritchett mentioned "another question'^ which he be- 
lieved could and should be answered by the accounts kept, to-wit, 
"the relative cost of that part of the university's work which goes 
to teaching and that part of it which goes to research.^' I do not 
believe that question could be truly answered b}^ accounts. 



*"Standard Forms for Financial Reports of Colleges, Universities, and 
Technical Schools" — Bulletin Number Three. 



FINANCIAL REPORTS 153 

It is impossible to draw lines between teaching and research, and 
it seems to me that it would not be desirable to do so if it were 
possible. Even those researches undertaken primarily by the 
teacher on his own account have mnch to do with his teaching, and 
almost always draw into them either graduate or undergraduate 
students. It is sufficient if the salaries, and the expenditure for 
equipment,* and the expense for supplies, etc., are distinctly given 
for each department. In a different connection, and a year later. 
President Pritchett himself points out that, "in the field of re- 
search, no consistent correlation between work and expense is feasi- 
ble'^ : 

"There is apparently a realm to which the industrial point of view is 
obviously inapplicable. The manufacturer must know in terms of dollars 
and cents the actual cost of every step he takes and of every product he 
turns out; and even when he carries on some particular form of activity 
at a loss, it is on the basis of a calculation that he will create ultimately 
a market sufficiently large to convert the loss into final gain. In the 
upper regions of academic activity, namely, in the field of research, no 
sucii close or consistent correlation between work and expense is feasible. 

. . The ultimate outcome of an expensive research may be slight, just 
as the ultimate outcome of an inexpensive research may be extremely 
precious or profitable. . . . There is, then, one area within which the 
industrial organizer may have much to tell our college administrator. 
There is at the far end another within which he may achieve nothing." 

The "realm to which the industrial point of view is inapplicable'' 
is, indeed, apparent; but it seems to me that it is not confined to 
any area at one far end. A realm that cannot be rightly subjected 
to the industrial point of view extends into every sphere of the 
interests of an educational institution. The truer metaphor would 
compare the reality with overlapping jurisdictions : nowhere is 
the business management without some jurisdiction, everywhere 
the supreme jurisdiction inheres in the spiritual aim. 

*The usual confusion of equipment and supplies in one account is unskill- 
ful and very unsatisfactory. 



154 AUDITS 

It is not enougli to publish clear financial reports. The reports 
should be certified by a public accountant after thorough examina- 
tion of the books and checking of all vouchers. For such an audit 
only a competent and reliable and independent auditor should be 
engaged. Universities ought to set the example of calling in for 
this periodical service preferably men holding the degree of Certi- 
fied Public Accountant. The Chartered Accountant has been a 
recognized and indispensable profession in Europe for centuries, 
but it was not until 1896 that the State of New York enacted the 
first law in the United States creating the title of Certified Public 
Accountant and authorizing its universities to grant the degree of 
C. P. A. Such laws do not forbid those who are not certified 
public accountants to practice as accountants, but they do, as far as 
possible, enable the public to choose men of reliable character and 
sufficient knowedge, if they wish to do so, when financial records 
and statements need to be audited and certified. California, Illi- 
nois, Maryland, JSTew Jerse}^, Pennsylvania, Washington and other 
States have enacted similar laws. "In May, 1903," says Mr. Eeck- 
itt, "the Illinois legislature passed the C. P. A. law for this State, 
and conferred upon the University of Illinois the privilege of 
granting the degree of C. P. A. to those who could qualify. The 
University has taken up this fresh duty with its usual energy.*' 

MistaJcen Analogies 

The volume entitled "Academic and Industrial Efficiency," pre- 
pared by Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, member of the American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers, issued* by the Carnegie Founda- 
tion, mingles with some good suggestions, advice, that, if followed, 
would lead a university into deleterious practices. It is very evi- 
dent, as President Pritchett explains in a preface, that Mr. Cooke's 
"study is offered from the viewpoint of one outside college work." 

He also explains that the "study is commended, without 



♦Bulletin Number Five. 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 155 

discussion as to its merits, to the thoughtful examination 
of college officers, trustees, and teachers, as a friendly at- 
tempt to contribute to the solution of college problems from the 
standpoint of one who has to do with industrial efficiency, and with- 
out any preconceived opinion as to how far the analogy which its 
title suggests may be pushed. The college is partly a business and 
partly something very different from a business." Any criticism 
of existing mismanagement may lead to good, by directing atten- 
tion to the need of some reform; but advice should be critically 
considered. There are practical dangers in this case that the 
well-intended advice of an industrial-efficiency expert may be fol- 
lowed, in thoughtless haste to be ^doing things,^ to the undoing of a 
university. 

Lack of space forbids comprehensive criticism of Mr. Cooke's 
observations from his "standpoint of industrial efficiency." Several 
points are mentioned as warning examples. He insists that all 
overhead expense should be apportioned among the respective de- 
partments of instruction, the charge against each being proportional 
to the amount of salaries paid in it; that the cost of heating be 
charged to the departments in proportion to the area of floor space, 
respectively occupied by them; that water, gas, and electricity be 
metered for each building and charged to the departments in 
proportion to their use of the building; that each department be 
charged with four per centum of the value of land and buildings 
(or parts thereof) and fixtures and equipment used by it, as inter- 
est on investment; and that four ycr centum of the value of lands 
and buildings held for the common good, and all cost of maintain- 
ing libraries, gymnasiums, etc., and deficits caused by commons, 
dormitories, etc., be prorated and charged against the teaching 
departments as overhead expenses are charged. The prime purpose 
of ascertaining from such accounts the "cost" of each department 
seems to be to learn the excess of receipts over the cost. The 
thoughtful reader here pulls himself together. Eeceipts? Ah, 



156 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 

friends, a little difficulty like that is nothing to an industrial organ- 
izer of a university. Mr. Cooke animadverts : "Anyone investing 
money in a business has an opportunity of judging the management 
by the profits earned. In the same way, a man who is at the head 
of a business can devote much or little time to the supervision of 
any one department with the thought that at a given date the books 
will be closed and the management of that department will be 
fairly accurately reflected in the excess of receipts over costs/' He 
^^ooks in vain'' in the accounts and records of colleges and univer- 
sities for any receipts to balance against the costs. Horrors ! We 
must find "some gauge or measure." "Before anv progress is pos- 
sible some selection must be made." Let us take, he says, "as per- 
haps the most immediately available unit the student-hour." Now, 
we may keep books that are tooJcs. 'Now the business manager can 
tell what his receipts are. For be it understood, Mr. Cooke deems 
this matter an affair of the ^^ursar, com-ntroller, or business mana- 
ger — the latter title seems to describe what I believe should be his 
general functions better than any other." And he opines: ^1i 
the student-hour were adopted and an effort made to keep track, not 
only of the details of cost per student-hour in each of the depart- 
ments, but of the receipts as well, this officer would have a large 
field of usefulness open to him." Simply divide the net cost, thus 
obtained, by the number of student -hours, and we shall be able to 
judge what we are getting for our money. The business manager is 
put in a position to give the needed advice for adiusting the number 
of courses offered, the number of instructors, and the salaries^ in 
every department. Invaluable student-hour! 

Mr. Cooke protests at several points, en passant, that he knows 
that "the cost per student-hour has absolutely no value in distin- 
guishing educational values," nevertheless it seems to him that the 
student-hour (or some other yet to be invented unit) must be used 
as a gauge or measure of efficiency, in the manner and for the pur- 



• MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 157 

poses described, ''before any progress is possible/' In my judg- 
ment, on the contrary, that way disaster lies. 

I submit that it is sufficient for good business management and 
proper financial reporting, to classify the expenses of general man- 
agement in suitable accounts; and to keep accounts with each de- 
partment showing the expenditure for its maintainance under suit- 
able headings, such as salaries, equipment, supplies, expense — 
analyzing the last as desirable, for instance, the printing and dis- 
tribution of bulletins in some departments should be a distinct item 
of expense. The prorating of overhead expenses, interest on the 
cost of buildings, etc., would serve no good purpose, and the re- 
sults would probably be misused. 

The chief use Mr. Cooke would make of student-hours is the most 
dangerous of his proposals. It is equally mistaken to use the 
student-hour to measure the labor and diligence of teachers; but 
the false assumption that the number of student-hours measures 
results and that the cost per student-hour, therefore, measures 
^^efficiency," menaces more serious practical consequences. The 
former error is so palpably absurd that it could hardly be applied 
except as an adjunct to the latter, — to add insult to injury. For 
instance, if overseers and critics imagined that a teacher who was 
conducting four courses, each attended by ten students three hours 
a week (120 student hours), was doing only half as much work as 
another who taught four courses, each attended by twenty stu- 
dents three hours a week (240 student-hours), — that foolish opin- 
ion could hardly, by itself, lead to more than jealous and unjust 
thoughts and feelings. But if the same facts should be made a 
basis for the belief that (at the same salary) the first teacher was 
costing the institution twice as much as the second, and that the 
results or the receipts for human society were in the same propor- 
tion, — then many injurious acts would follow. If a college or uni- 
versity calculated and published, as an established practice, the 



158 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 

cost per student-hour for each department^ practical abuses would 
inevitably follow. 

The fear of just such misconceptions (especially on the part of 
regents and legislators), has led the majority of universities to 
withhold facts that ought to be known. One cannot learn from 
catalogs (often not by special inquiry) even the number of stu- 
dents enrolled in a department. The danger feared by administra- 
tors is real, but in my judgment the concealment usually practiced 
is a mistake. The number of students attending each course in 
each department ought to be published. I do not believe that jus- 
tifiable departments or courses would often be abolished. Ill-con- 
sidered attacks might be made, and sometimes ignorance might pre- 
vail: but in general^ intelligent defense would win, and even fail- 
ure would mean no moral defeat, no inner catastrophe. The num.- 
ber of o+n^p-nfs atterdiiig e^oh roiirse is a sim.ple fact that should 
be co^^^^'^^^c^ directlv in ea^>> rasp. Incongruous numerical opera- 
tions ■p-fo'^ueins!" numbers miscalled salan- per student-hour, cost 
per student-hour, efficiencv, etc., will never be employed bv those 
who understand what ought to be considered in determining 
whether a course or a department should be maintained or not. 
If it be decided on proper grounds that the course should be 
offered, then it follows in the right management of the business of a 
university, regardless of the number of student-hours, that the 
cost of the work should be whatever is necessary to do it well. In 
some courses the number of students affects the cost, in others 
(within limits) it does not affect the cost, and for no course is the 
cost proportional to the number oi students. And never is the 
number of students (or student-hourg) a "gauge or measure" of 
the value of the results. 

If two universities approximate the same size and maintain 
approximately the same colleges and schools, the quotient ob- 
tained by dividing total expenditure by number of students affords 
a legitimate basis for a rough comparison of their standards of 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 159 

maintenance.* That quotient is a fact, and has some significance; 
but it is thoughtless to name it '^cosr per student/' It is astonish- 
ing that university authorities who conceal the enrollments in their 
departments, lest the facts should be misused, commonly dessemi- 
nate the very misconception they fear, by publishing arguments 
for increased support in which they use the misleadino- term "oost 
per student^' to name the fact — Income Divided bv Number of 
Students. The reader needs onlv to be reminded tb^t e^p-r-v n-mVpr- 
sity and everv agricultural college must expend con=i'""'prf)Np ^^nms 
on scientific research, experiment stations, survevs. mu^enma. 'hnlle- 
tins, and "extension" services of great variety. In some case? 
thousand of persons not included in the number of students are 
taught by correspondence. Many other services to the State and to 
individuals, besides teaching students during the regular term of 
enrollment, might be mentioned. Let the number of QfiT^pu+Q in 
each course be published in catalogs; let the cost of maint^iiuing 
each department be published in financial reports. That is suffi- 
cient. The cost "per student" rarely needs to be considered, and 
then only in a true sense by experts who know to what extent i-he 
cost of the department in question would be affected by a given 
increase or decrease in the number of its students. For sfeneral pub- 
lication, or for the uses advised in the imposing monograph we are 
discussing, the very idea is pernicious. And the figures as there 
derived are either erroneous or meaningless. 

The certified accountant, Mr. Eeckitt, in his discussion of Busi- 
ness Methods in Universities, also "from the viewpoint of one out- 
side college work," proves the possibility of understandino- these 
matters whether viewed from without or from within. He mentions 
that the total cost of operation per capita may be useful for some 



*The average for a number of institutions of the same class gives a 
better basis. See "A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Univer- 
sities and Agricultural Colleges in Fourteen States," by Arthur Lefevre, 
issued by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of 
Its Institutions of Higher Education. 



160 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 

comparisons "if carried out "understandingly," and then explains: 
'HJnlike the ordinary factory or construction company whose sole 
end is to manufacture and construct at the lowest cost, we may 
compare the college or university to the manufacture of some spe- 
cially fine piece of machinery or tool, where the cost of the material 
or workmanship upon it is not a consideration, or to the construc- 
tion of a palace or temple where the cost of marble is only a consid- 
eration in so far as the amount of money raised for its erection 
must not be exceeded. The output of the college or university is 
the most wonderful piece of machinery known — the brain ; and what 
is more important still, the temple it constructs, the character it 
builds, is fashioned after the likeness of God. Therefore the cost 
of tuition per capita cannot be a consideration in the same manner 
as other operation expenses, except in so far that the total amount 
expended must be in conformity with your revenues/^ 

Mr. Cooke prints a table giving "Expense per Student" and 
^TSeceipts per Student" for nine schools or colleges of Yale Univer- 
sity. Those units, he says, are too large, and claims that the 
smaller units, department and student-hour, would enable one 
"to separate those items of expense which should be the same for 
all departments from those which necessarily vary in the different 
departments." Would they? Consider: Two departments "pro- 
ducing'^ the same number of student-hours show a different cost 
per student-hour. If you make the unwarranted assumption that 
this fact proves that the difference is due to "necessary" fac- 
tors, how are you enlightened as to what items of expense ought to 
be the same? If you do not make that assumption, how are you 
told what items ought to be different ? Accounts tell the authorities 
whether the salary of a law professor or a professor of medicine 
exceeds that of some academic instructor; they could tell on Mr. 
Cooke's plan, the charge against each department for grounds and 
buildings et cetera; they can tell that cadavers and dissecting in- 
struments or chemical apparatus and reagents, have cost more than 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 161 

the departmental library for economics; but neither the accounts 
nor the business manager (officially) can tell whether these facts 
ought to be as they are or otherwise. 

The data for Yale shows that the least "expense per student" is 
in the Law School ($177.14), and the greatest in medicine 
($396.90), forestn- ($469.39), and theology ($641.03)— with "re- 
ceipts per student/' of $122.86 in law, $130.22 in medicine; 
$119.17 in forestry; none in theology. Mr. Cooke savs : "Earn- 
ings should be handled in the same way [as expenses]. Tuition 
fees should be prorated to the various departments in proportion to 
the amount of tuition furnished. If special fees are charged, as 
in laboratory work, the department receiving them should be given 
credit for this amount of earnings. In this way the gross and net 
expenses of eacJi department can he figured out. If this is done, it 
will probably result in a material readjustment of the scale of 
charges now^ in force." If it is done, the probability is, indeed, 
as he states: that is the point I ivoidd have the reader ponder. If 
the excess of expense over receipts for tuition in each department 
be regarded as the net cost per student for that department, Yale 
University, according to Mr. Cooke, ought to be guided in its under- 
takings and policies by its business manager's report that the net 
cost per annum per student was $54.28 in law, $266.68 in medicine, 
$350.22 in forestry, $641.03 in theology. There is, it is asserted, 
somehow a "gauge or measure" of "'efficiency" in these figures, — or 
would be if we reduced the cost per student to cost per student- 
hour, which would probably suggest a still more shocking ineffi- 
ciency for medicine and forestry andt theology. 

The revenue accounts should classify receipts from fees for tui- 
tion according to the terms* in which they are levied, and the facts 



*E. g., laboratory fees would show the departments in which they orig- 
inated, but a general fee for tuition in a college of arts and sciellce^:. or 
school of engineering, would not be prorated to departments according to 
the courses taken bv each student. 



162 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 

should be reported in the statement of revenues. That is enough. The 
facts would be at hand if an occasion for examining any policy in 
view of them should arise. The account with each department 
would be simply the properly classified expenditures for its main- 
tenance. It would serve no good purpose to prorate all other ex- 
penses of the institution in charges against the teaching^ depart- 
ments, and credit their accounts by prorated tuition fees. An 
insidiously disorganizing spirit might spring from the false em- 
phasis and affirmative errors of such a practice. I sav affirmative 
errors, because, in reality, the departments for which the fees are 
lowest have a large part (from the general attendance and prestige 
acquired by the institution through them) in earning the fees 
charged in other departments. The different fees charged for 
tuition in different departments, and free tuition in some, are 
questions of policy in the sphere of general administration. The 
differences do not, or should not, aif ect the work or the salaries in 
any department. 

I am constrained to point out one more misconception through 
which Mr. Cooke has darkened counsel. After measuring the prod • 
ucts of a university by the student-hour, he insists that the produc- 
ers must be estimated by means of time cards. We must get a 
unit for the working as well as for the work of these "nrofessor?. 
The time spent with students, he avers, is "the equivalent of what 
is called the ^productive' time of other workers.'' With aroloq-ir^' 
for the term "productive time," he continues: "In any study of 
the college teacher as a producer, his productive time, i. e.,, the 
time he spends with his students, must be determined. ... In 
studying the efficiency of any worker one must determine, first, 
what the worker is employed to do ; second, it must be ascertained 
how much time he puts in on this work; and, third, it must be 
determined how relatively efficient he is while so engaged." The 
third conundrum has been disposed of by means of the student- 
hour. The first and second must be solved, else we sit in darkness. 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 163 

With the usual kindly protestations of his recognition that there 
is ^'a background" of quality everywhere, and that laboratory hours 
should perhaps be weighted three to one in comparison with lecture 
hours, the industrial organizer blithely proceeds to investigate and 
estimate eighty-two university teachers in a model fashion : 

He decides that the time considered should be between eight 
a. m. and six p. m. for thirty teaching weeks. He explains : "Many 
of the professors desired to make a report on what they did with 
their time after six p. m., and others desired an opportunity to 
show what they did with their time in the summer months — on 
research and in preparation for the next school year. ... It did 
not seem desirable to go outside of the hours between eight and six, 
which for the business and professional man is considered a working 
day." So ? Is there here a lapsus linguae in saying "professional 
man" when the speal^er was thinking ^factory hand'? And aside 
from the "working day" question, would Mr. Cooke (still recog- 
nizing quality in the "background'*) consider it illuminating and 
important to ascertain the time spent on a physician's diagnosis, a 
surgeon's operation^ a lawyer's opinion, a musician's symphony, a 
preacher's sermon ? But if university teachers are to be estimated 
by "'"ime cards, it makes little difference whether their superintend- 
ents consider the truth, or limit scrutiny to the hours between 8 
a. ]n. and 6 p. m, — they will get statistics, and business managers 
can "keep track" and advise, as easily one way as the other. The 
records, we are advised, should give analysis of the working day for 
every teacher as follows : 

Hours per Week — Between 8 a. m. and 6 p. m. 

1. Time Spent with Students. 

Laboratory Exercises — only absolute appointments. 

Lectures. 

Recitations — hours usually so devoted may be used for lectures. 

Consultations — only regularly kept office hours. 



164 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 

2. Time Spent on Research. 

Only hours followed with approximately the same regularity as 
the other heads. 

3. Miscellaneous. 

Preparation for Lectures — only time given regularly at same hour 

and same place each week. 
Preparation for Recitations. 
Preparation for Laboratory. 
Meetings — faculty, committee, etc. 
Administrative. 
Correcting Papers, etc. 
Study. 
Bookwriting, etc. 

Such a table is made out for eighty-two subjects^ who were 
warned : "Unless a high degree of accuracy is aimed at, the com- 
parison will lose much of its value.'' The data is reduced in a 
second table, which, it is affirmed^ will "give an idea of the value 
of a ^productive' hour for each grade [of teachers]." The second 
table gives the salaries, and the "money value of time spent with 
students," etc. In the illustrative case the average annual salary 
for 20 full professors was $3800.00, giving average salary per 
teaching week $126.66; average salary per hour, $3.66; average 
salary per hour with students, $9.5?'. For assistant professors the 
figures $1954.00, $65.13, $1.83, $4.46; and for instructors 
$1236.00, $41.20, $1.20, $2.33, were obtained. 

If a reader having any knowledge of what college teaching is or 
ought to be, or of how it is done or ought to be done, sees, in spite 
of that knowledge, any propriety in such records, — I do not know 
how to argue with him. Most of the items are absurdly untrue in 
their titles, for instance "preparation for lectures" is nowise ascer- 
tained by counting time spent thereon between 8 a. m. and 6 p. m. 
at the same hour and same place each week. That is utterly ab- 
surd. But even if all the time spent at different hours and places 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 165 

could be known, nothing of any importance would be known about 
the teacher's preparation. 

A sense of Immor would be helpful to save our universities from 
misapplied business methods. Gentle ridicule might be a better 
prophylactic against the adoption of inapplicable methods, than in- 
dignant argument. Mr. Cooke gives, unconsciously, a fine example 
of the genial wisdom of Dr. Eliot. At several points he mentions 
the difficulties he experienced at Harvard in finding out what he 
w^anted to know in order to prorate to the teaching departments 
charges for interest on the value of lands and buildings, etc. At 
one point he reports a rejoinder by the president : "Dr. Eliot, then 
president of Harvard University, said : '^We tr^^ to come as near 
forgetting the value of our lands and buildings as possible.' '^ 
The humor of this, in the circumstances, was lost on the industrial 
engineer, but the story is a contribution to the sanity as well as to 
the gaietv of nations. It would have been better had the eighty- 
tw^o college teachers laughed a little, instead of pleading to be 
allowed to tell what they did after 6 p. m., if respect for the 
high credentials carried by the inquisitor constrained them to 
fill out the time cards. The same request from any official of their 
own institutions should have l^een treated as all self-reliant men 
treated it at Harvard University, ^vhen some one in the business 
offices took it into his head last January to adopt some of the meas- 
ures recommended in the bulletin of the great Foundation, in which 
Mr. Cooke's advice is published. The present writer happened to 
be visiting at Harvard just after time cards had been sent to the 
faculty from the comptroller's office, wdth a request that "all 
time spent in the interest of the university" be recorded under 
certain headings. As far as I know the men smiled or frowned 
and threw the schedule blanks away, or put them aside as a curios- 
ity. The next day in j^ew York I read the editorial in the Evening 
Post for Jan. 7, 1913, which was reprinted in Science for Jan. 17, 
1913. I heard of no threats such as the paper alludes to, — the 



166 MISTAKE]^ ANALOGIES 

thing seemed to be regarded as too absurd and impossible not to be 
a mistake. Of course, some one, less cool and discrete, must have 
given the facts to the newspapers before the president had time 
to revoke the action of the business office. The editorial in the 
Evening Post was headed "The Efficiency ^STostrum at Harvard." 
It is wise counsel, fitly spoken : 

" 'Harvard professors and instructors,' so goes a newspaper account, 
•'are thoughtfully rubbing troubled brows today while they ponder over an 
intricate network of blanks and spaces whereon Assistant Controller Taylor 
has requested them to record the exact disposition which they make of all 
time spent in the interests of the university.' The assistant controller 
states that he desires these data for the purpose of using them 'as a basis 
for prorating salaries to the various classified functions.' The assistant 
controller recognizes that the variations in such data due to the personal 
equation 'would make impracticable the direct use of these figures for the 
purpose of distributing salaries/ but nevertheless he is apparently of the 
opinion that they would be a comfortable thing to have, and so he asks 
for them. . . . 

"In sober truth, this news from Harvard is a very serious matter. 
. . . It ought to bring out from the Harvard faculty, and especially 
from the men of light and leading in that faculty, an impressive protest; 
and the most impressive form the protest could take would be that of a 
dignified but firm refusal to comply with the demand made upon 
them. . . . 

"To be a university professor has hitherto meant, in this country, as 
in all the world, to give to the university yourself — your personality, 
your talent, your capacity to interest, to instruct, to inspire. Many pro- 
fessors have, to be sure, fallen short of fulfilling this ideal; . . . but 
the recognition of the personal nature of the professor's work, of a dis- 
tinctively personal measurement of his value, has never been abandoned. 
It is Agassiz, or Child, or Martin, or Gibbs, or Norton, or Gildersleeve — 
not so many hours of their labor — ^that Harvard, or Yale, or Johns Hop- 
kins has had the good fortune to possess; and every faithful and com- 
petent professor has a right to feel that the same is true of him in his 
degree. . . . 

"It is easy to accuse those who object to the introduction of this effi- 
ciency nostrum of being reactionaries — ^upholders of the doctrine that what- 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 167 

ever is is. right. But it is still easier to reply to the accusation. Not 
because our universities and colleges are all that Ihey ought to be, but 
because the proposed remedy is a crude and barbarous one, do we reject 
that remedy, 

"We ought to have more competent teachers, we ought to have more 
inspiring leaders of research; but we shall not get them by means of time 
checks or card catalogues. . . . When you have got all your time-card 
and efficiency-measure mechanism going, you may be able to compel every 
professor to come up to a certain standard; but you cannot compel the 
men whom you ought to have as professors to enter the calling. You 
may get the same amount of 'results' out of the faculties for less money, 
or a great-er amount for the same money, so far as 'results' can be meas- 
ured by your mechanical methods; but what you have lost you will never 
be able to measure. And what shall it profit the university to have 
gained countless student-hours and experiment-units and to have lost what 
is highest and best in it?" 

And later: 

"President Lowell has sent to the members of the Harvard faculty a 
statement which amounts to something like a repudiation of the prepos- 
terous circular of inquiry issued several days ago in the name of the 
assistant controller of the university. A more complete repudiation would 
have been more welcome, but it should be safe to assume that Dr. Lowell's 
statement that 'answers were intended to be wholly voluntary' and that 
'the recent circular was issued under a misunderstanding' means the end 
of this folly. The episode is one that Harvard should be glad to forget, 
except in so far as it drew out — as it did, though we are not informed as 
to what extent — threats of resignation on the part of men who had a 
proper conception of the professor's calling. It is humiliating to think 
that such a protest should have been made necessary at our country's most 
distinguished seat of learning; but as it has happened, we trust that the 
feeling of self-respecting professors has been made so manifest as to pre- 
clude the possibility of any resurrection of the foolish scheme." 

It has been duly explained that Mr. Cooke frequently pauses to 
assure the reader of his "sympathy with the spiritual sio^nificance 
of university life/"' etc., and I do not fail to appreciate his good 
feeling and intention; but a physician's prescription is not sane- 



168 MISTAKEN AJS^ALOGIES 

tioned by affectionate regard for the patient. The question for 
this discussion has been simply whether or not the recommended 
practices would be good business methods for a university. It is 
not a question between no business methods at all, and the methods 
he proposes. I insist on the need of a correct management of the 
business of a college or university, as much as he does. 
But masterful knowledge of the business to be managed is an indis- 
pensable qualification for judging the propriety and usefulness of 
any procedure. 

Analogies are dangerous gTound for judgments. It is true 
(to give one more instance), as Mr. Cooke says: "In the in- 
dustrial world it is considered essential to give a man some drill 
before he is allowed to sell books (.>r a cash register;'' but he errs 
in basing on that fact his suggestion of a "1)ureau of inspection" 
and an agency for "coaching in class-room methods" the younger 
instructors in a university. The analog)^ for a process or method 
could not hold, in any case, unless we wanted analogous results. We 
are familiar with the style of the "drilled" salesman of books and 
cash registers. An "academic-industrial" adviser must permit us to 
judge whether a style at all analogous would improve the efficiency 
of teachers. The style of the drilled and managed man is stamped 
on him. It should be understood, also, that the coached salesmen 
would be more efficient if they had learned to know their books or 
their cash registers and their public more gradually. Tlie sales 
managers merely do the best they can to supply a substitute for 
a superior knowledge, and the "talking points" the}^ give the sales- 
men are analogous, not to anything that could be done for univer- 
sity instructors by a class-room inspector, but to the studies of those 
instructors before they began to teach. The youngest university 
instructors have usually had at least six years of university life, 
studying under many different teachers and knowing student work 
and life at first hand. I recognize and deplore far more poignantly 
than Mr. Cooke seems to do the shortcomings of many college 



MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 169 

teachers, but I know that a bureau of inspection and drilling would 
make matters worse. As to the time-cards, even if thev were not 
positively injurious^ they would have no bearing upon the actual 
shortcomings. On the contrary, college teachers generally drudge 
too incessantly. Mr. Cooke himself observed this fact, and re- 
marks in another connection: "It is impossible to believe that 
men with so little relaxation do not suffer from excessive concen- 
tration." Lack of application, such as it may be, is not a considera' 
ble fault of college teachers. The real shortcomings of those who 
are at fault are of an entirely different order — lack of scholarship, 
lack of vigor, native weakness of the mind^s anal3^tical powers, 
and the moral obliquities manifested by careless law-making and 
by violations of concrete justice or propriety in applying to in- 
dividuals overweening general rules for the government of stu- 
dents.* Time-cards, or any form of surveillance, would aggra- 
vate the real troubles. The true administrative remedies lie in 
(1) proper organization of the whole institution, (2) correct 
principles and proper care in making first appointments, and 
(3) a better discrimination of true worth in advancing indi- 
viduals to higher positions or otherwise conferring prominence 
and influence. Distressing as it may be to industrial engineers, it 
is impossible to measure the products of colleo-es and universities 
by any "units'^ whatsoever, nor is there any definite relation be- 
tween product and cost. President Pritchett wisely warns: 
"There is no gain to be had by presenting a series of statistics 
unless they warrant some conclusion concerning the operations 
which they represent.'^ 



*In almost every faculty there are some individuals who in their de- 
meanor toward students, even more than in the formal measures they 
advocate, manifest a total ignorance of the respect due to the proper 
privacies of personality upon which manly responsibility and self-reliance 
must be founded. Upon such respect of personality all that mankind has 
deemed good manners and reliability of character, whether in prince or 
peasant, has hitherto been founded and maintained. 



170 SUGGESTIONS 

Suggestions 
It ought to be borne in mind that if a proper business manage- 
ment had not been neglected by many colleges and universities, 
there would be no occasion for the outcry that has been raised 
against their obvious omission, or for the mistaken advice of some 
who have been called to counsel. The blame — if blame need be 
spoken of — rests upon neglectful regents and presidents and fac- 
ulties. It is to the sick man that prescriptions and diagnoses are 
offered by friends and acquaintances. The splendid series of bul- 
letins and annual reports issued by the Foundation for the Ad- 
vancement of Teaching have given a great deal of truly expert ad- 
vice, and have been very serviceable. Even this bulletin publishing 
Mr. Cookers study of "Academic and Industrial Efficiency" offers 
many criticisms that should be heeded. His ideas about measuring 
and securing efficiency, and methods of cost-analysis are doubtless 
mistaken for a university — based on false analogies ; but the follow- 
ing running references show that Mr. Cooke observed and under- 
stood some things to which college authorities need to give intelli- 
gent attention : 

"The proper functions of the board of directors would be, for instance, 
to select, after having proper evidence presented to it the broad and 
general type af management. . . . They should not mess into the 
detail of the personnel. . . . Nor should they vote a reduction of 
wages or an increase of wages contrary to the leadership of the president. 
. . . The president should lead his board rather than he a tool to be 
guided by them in detail; and when it becomes impossible for the president 
to lead in the carrying out of the general policy of the board, another 
man should be selected for the head of the business who is competent to 
lead them. . . . 

"At Princeton, while as a matter of practice the departments were 
allowed to attend to the details — and only occasionally were they upset — 
the most unintelligent counsel prevailed at times on matters of real 
moment. In other words, there were no bounds to the authority of those 
^higher up' when they cared to use it. One or two committees of the 



SUGGESTIONS 171 

board of trustees had the power to enter almost every hook and corner 
of the educational structure. This inspection of course would be all 
right — excellent — if it were made for the purpose of seeing that the general 
policies were being carried out; but too frequently there is no permanent 
general policy and these acts are the promptings of personal whims or 
prejudices. Everyone from the president down told me that committee 
management was adopted because it was a democratic form of government. 
The result struck me as being a far cry from real democracy." 

'•'The world's experience in all directions has demonstrated the utter 
impracticability of doing successfully executive work under the manage- 
ment of a body of men either large or small. A committee of one is the 
best committee to have in charge of executive work. . . . Almost 
invariably under committee management there is the spectacle of three 
or more men wasting precious time in deciding questions outside their 
own fields, which could be better and far more quickly decided by a single 
expert, whose time might be worth less than that of any one of the 
three or six men on the committee. . . . 

"After having seen both the military type of management and committee 
management, apparently each at its best, the writer is convinced that, 
in the educational world as in the industrial world, neither of them will 
give the best results. The way out lies through functional management." 

'"If there is one thing that stands out as an example of inefficiency, it 
is the degree of use to which college buildings are put. ... I found 
one magnificent lecture hall on the second floor of a building, standing on 
land worth approximately twenty-five dollars a square foot, in use six 
hours a week — and this is an institution which is undoubtedly handicapped 
for [by] lack of room. . . . 

"The management of all buildings should be in the hands of some central 
authority.* ... A professor in one department has not the information 
about the conditions in another department that would make it possible 
for him to lend the rooms or borrow them to advantage. This is what 
they are supposed to do now, and there is little of it done. . . . 

'•'One measure that will make possible a larger use of rooms is the shift- 



*Mr. Cooke would put rooms up to auction to the departments at charges 
scaled to desirability, in his system of charging to the teaching depart- 
ments all expenses and interest on all grounds and buildings ; but I am 
now quoting only his good ideas. 



172 SUGGESTIOITS 

ing of the hours at which certain lectures and recitations occur. It used 
to be accepted that all recitations must occur in the morning and labora- 
tory practice in the afternoon. Gradually this old order has been more 
or less modified, but if a central authority had to pass on all schedules 
and would study each with regard to its relations to all the others and 
to the buildings, much further progress could be made." 

"At the University of Toronto, after every laboratory exercise the appa- 
ratus which has been in use by the students is put away. If it is bulky 
and the table large, the apparatus is placed at the far end of the table 
and lined up with it. A neat unbleached muslin covering is then placed 
over it. In other words each section leaves the laboratory free for the 
use of any section that comes after it and the remarkable part of this 
is that in this particular laboratory there is so much space that there 
is no necessity for its conservation. It is done I was informed largely 
out of consideration for the development of the characters of the students 
and to teach them habits of neatness. I have never seen such a well- 
ordered building anywhere. Any industrial establishment with which I 
am familiar can learn from the Physics Department of the University of 
Toronto in the matter of housekeeping. Every other laboratory I visited 
had more or less to criticise in this respect." 

"Nearly every department has a policy it is working on or some field 
peculiar to itself that it is trying to cover. And yet in studying their 
literature it is very difl&cult oftentimes to discover this. ... At no 
two of the colleges visited was the same system for designating courses in 
use. Several of these systems were almost impossible for an outsider to 
understand. ... It was suggested to me that in some of these matters 
it will be better to design an entirely new system than to attempt to build 
even on the best of those now in use. . . . The editors of college 
catalogues must learn that it is not enough to state a thing correctly, 
but it must be stated so that the average person who reads it can under- 
stand it." 

"At Columbia University they have adopted the plan of trying to 
emphasize the importance of dealing with each student individually 
. . . rather than dealing with the students in masses. . . . 

"At the last college which I visited, almost the opposite policy was in 
operation. Every time the students were mentioned there were evidences 
that the teachers had in mind the students' scholarly inferiority and way- 



SUGGESTIONS 173 

wardness. The difference in these two attitudes was as concrete as any- 
thing I encountered." 

"Increase in the efficiency of the teaching staff will be obtained through 
such specializing as will come as the result of functional management. 
Without a more careful analysis, it is impossible to predict the extent 
to which this can be carried. There are some things, however, that are 
clear. During the interviews which the writer had with college pro- 
fessors, he found them spending time in taking inventories, keeping track 
of appropriations, mimeographing examination papers, and handling routine 
correspondence. These things are clerical work, and should be handled 
outside of the teaching field, and not as a part of the teacher's duties. 
In addition, there are many other things, including management of the 
buildings and departments, Avhich might easily be centralized and done 
by officials who can devote their time exclusively to them. Such changes 
would leave the professor more time for the work for which he is espe- 
cially fitted." 

It has been a matter for wonderment by many critics, that any 
sort of acquaintance with college work should not have made it 
plain to governing boards, to say nothing of presidents, that a 
professor^s time is too valuable to be spent on mechanical details 
of administrative and clerical work for which suitable arrangements 
could be made so easily at less expense. It is extravagant pecun- 
iarly and wasteful of the essential resources of the institution to 
compel its most highly paid and most important workers to con- 
sunie a large part of their time in doing things that would be 
better done by other workers. It is the plain demand of common 
business sense, dependent upon no false analogy, that the teaching 
departments be given such clerks as would release the teachers 
from time-consuming tasks that a young office assistant could do as 
well as a member of the faculty. Also, under proper functional 
division and management of the affairs common to all or many 
departments, much clerical work that now wastes the time and 
strength of a hundred members of the faculty would be attended to 
in several central offices. By a slight increase of clerical force 



174 SUGGESTIONS 

the work would be performed more effectively, and hitherto wasted 
time and energy of teachers would be added to the truly effective 
forces of the institution. Of course, all arrangements should be 
instituted and conducted so as to relieve and help the teaching 
departments without hindering or interfering with their proper 
work and freedom. 

If the business management of such an institution as a university 
is rightly understood, it will always be possible to make arrange- 
ments satisfactory both tO' the workers in the teaching depart- 
ments and the offices of administration. The latter should exist 
only to serve the former. There is no open dispute about the 
theory of the last statement, but it has been too long assumed that 
practice comports with the theory. As a matter of fact, the very 
whims of administrative departments commonly override interests 
which administration ought to subserve. Many a time the real or 
fancied convenience, or ill-conceived idea, of some clerk has been 
the true origin of an executive order, inconsiderately issued by 
regents, president, or dean, imposing upon the professoriate some 
onerous and exasperating requirement. It is time that the truth 
about such things should no longer be suppressed by feelings of 
loyalty or charity. It is, indeed, more pointedly to the interest 
of university presidents than university professors, that the rieht 
function and spirit of administration should be fully recognized 
by all concerned. 

There is perhaps no more distinguished efficiency engineer than 
Mr. Harrington Emerson. I am not aware that he has ever con- 
sidered the organization and administration of colleges and univer- 
sities; but one who knows how to discern the spirit and caliber of 
a m.an from his discursive literary expression upon any subject, 
may infer from Mr. Emerson's waitings on industrial efficiency 
that he would not fail to keep in mind the nature and purposes 
and proper conditions of educational work and scholarly research, 
if he were consulted about institutions of higher education. 



SUGGESTIONS 175 

"Ideals must precede selective action/^ is his fundamental predica- 
tion, and "Know the spirit rather than the externals of your busi- 
ness/' is one of his maxims. In his most recent book, Twelve 
Principles of Efficiency (1913); he makes "Clearly Defined Ideals" 
the first of the twelve principles. He understands too: "It is 
not either the right or the privilege of the Efficiency Engineer to 
set up ideals of morality, goodness, or beauty . . . but he has a 
right to expect that some definite ideal will be set up so that at 
the start its possible incompatability with one or more of the 
efficiency principles may be pointed out." An ideal to which 
profits are made subsidiary may be, he says, "an admirable foun- 
dation on which to build a highly efficient organization, for, in 
corporations as in individuals, what is the profit of gaining the 
whole world if the soul is lost ?" The following running quotations 
from the book will suggest how one expert student of organiza- 
tion and efficiency in general, might criticise the management 
of universities: I 

"There have always been two types of organization, types that Mr. 
F. W. Taylor characterizes as functional and military. . . . [Yet] it 
is von Moltke's tremendous gift to the world that, although a soldier 
hampered by tradition, he applied to the army the functional type of 
organization." 

"Having two forms of organization to choose from — only two, the 
destructively offensive and the constructively defensive — we chose for our 
industrial organization the destructively offensive type, and it does not 
work out, never can and never will." 

"The defective wolf-pack type of organization which still controls Ameri- 
can railroads, American industrial plants, is one in which a chief issues 
arbitrary orders to his subordinates expecting them somehow or other to 
execute them. The perfected organization for industrial upbuilding and 
efl&ciency is one in which specialists formulate the underlying principles^ 
instruct as to their application, and relentlessly reveal both their observ- 
ance and neglect." 

"It is all one and the same thing, as they are all victims of a common 
type of organization resting on the same principles — individual arbitrari- 



176 SUGGESTIONS 

ness at the top, and delegated power down tlie line, anarchy everywhere. 
. . . We who know could fill volumes with modern illustrations of the 
ever outcropping evils due to the destructive type of organization." 

"The president was not to blame. He had to make a decision, and he 
did not have an organization around him, over him, under him, that auto- 
matically prevented this mistake, equally disastrous to his company, to 
his employes, and to him.self," 

"The tonnage mania has wrought havoc when applied by lesser geniuses 
who, instead of thinking and planning and organizing, clamor for more 
equipment, . . . Most plants are over-equipped." 

"Industrial arbitrariness by the superintendent, delegated and usurped 
power in the foreman, anarchy all along the line." 

"The chief eflB.ciency counselor would initially advise as to type of 
organization, he would ascertain what the ideals were and strive for their 
realization." 

"Many of the older executives must today not only fulfil their own 
duties, but in addition see that the inexperienced one-sided specialists do 
not cause more trouble than they cure." 

"The first study of any organization is to find out to what extent the 
other prinicples have been applied to the first prinicple. Ideals.' . . . 
No efficiency principle stands alone, each supports and strengthens all the 
rest." 

"Efiiciency, like hygiene, is a state, an ideal, not a method; but in 
America we have sought our salvation in methods." 

"The spirit of a place is intangible, but counts for more for evil or 
good than all rules and punishments combined. . . . Under the best 
management there are scarcely any rules and there are fewer punishments." 

"There is at least one large business aggregation in the United States 
in which a strike is unthinl<;able because it is a coveted privilege to be 
admitted to it as a worker, a catastrophe to be cast out, and so high is 
the morale that the workers themselves make and maintain standards of 
conduct far stricter than any usual employer would dare to enforce, 
although he may print and post rule after rule." 

"The way to guard against trouble is to make the position desired by 
a superior man, to allow it to be filled only by a superior man, to maintain 
the position at a high level." 

"It is really very much easier to apply a few principles than to remedy 
several million defects. The easiest way is to forget these defects in the 



SUGGESTIONS 177 

past, ignore tliem for the present, but constantly obviate them for the 
future." 

"We must reverse the administrative cycle. . . . The employer 
exists solely to make effective the totally different function of the em- 
ploye. . . . An incompetent head, if supplemented by a perfect organ- 
ization, will often do little harm. . . . An inferior leader, relying on 
defective organization, without ideals, is bound to go down in defeat and 
to drag down with him all that he controls." 

"It has often happened that in industrial plants where high efficiencies 
were being obtained, visitors confounding system with efficiency have come, 
have collected devices, cards and forms, have gone away supposing they 
had the secret of efficiency. It is as if a man should appropriate a 
lawyer's library and think this made him proficient in the law. There are 
millions of devices, forms, cards; no one can grasp them all, understand 
them all, and the chances are that not one of them will exactly fit in an 
untried place." 

"Strenuousness and efficiency are not only not the same, but are antag- 
onistic. To be strenuous is to put forth greater effort, to be efficient is 
to put forth less effort. . . . All around us, everywhere nature has 
been showing us that increased result comes from lessened effort, not from 
greater effort, but we have been too stupid to understand. . . . We 
have non-reasoned back from results to effort, and concluded that effort 
should be gauged by result, which is in accord with one set of experiences 
but wholly contrary to the larger experience." 

"In striving for industrial efficiency of operation, we have made pleas 
for a different type of organization — the defensive, constructive organiza- 
tion instead of the offensive, destructive organization; we have made a 
plea for definite high ideals instead of indefinite low ideals; we have made 
a plea for supernal common sense instead of near common sense." 

"To select an upbuilding constructive organization, carefully to deter- 
mine and adhere to ideals, constantly to survey every problem from a lofty 
instead of near point of view, to seek special knowledge and advice wher- 
ever they can be found, to maintain from top to bottom a noble discipline, 
to build on the rock of the golden rule, of the fair deal — these are the 
general problems which supernal common sense must immediately solve. 
. . . It is impossible to lay down rules or to give specific directions 
as to how we shall convert prejudice and ignorance from without, near 
common sense within, into supernal common sense." 



178 kegistrar's office 

"Twelve principles of efficiency! We began witli ideals, we end with 
ideals. Men must have ideals or they cannot do good work; there must 
be possibility of highest efficiency reward or neither senses, nor spirit, 
nor mind is stimulated. He who would take ideals from the world's 
workers, he who would deprive them of the lure of individual reward for 
individual efficiency, would indeed make them brother to the ox." 

Registrar's Office 

If the real business of a college or university were rightly con- 
ceived, the proper function of a registrar's office would be regarded 
as the most important record-keeping department of the institu- 
tion. As far as records can guide a wise administration, those 
that ought to be provided by the registrar would supply greater 
assistance than the financial reports. The latter are indispensable 
in order to keep enterprises within the bounds of pecuniary re- 
sources, but the purpose of a university is not to make money, and 
its work as undertaken is not directly helped by financial reports; 
whereas the registrar's reports should tell the central authorities^ 
as far as reports can tell, what work is being done, and the regis- 
trar's records should give to teachers and disciplinary officers the 
information about each student that is often needed for rightly 
dealing with his studies or his conduct. It is significant of the 
perversions manifested in much of the advice given by industrial 
organizers, that the main use of records concerning students, in 
their opinion, is to enable a business manager to figure "cost per 
student-hour," etc. This, in truth, is worse than a perversion, it is 
a veritable subversion. Minute analyses of costs, such as have been 
considered in a previous section of this chapter, are an injurious 
mistake in the business management of a university. But the 
legitimate and necessary accounts recording expenditures, are of 
secondary importance compared with the records that should be 
kept by the registrar. 

That the office of registrar is so vaguely conceived and so care- 
lessly unsystematized, is one of the grave indictments against col- 



registrar's office 179 

lege faculties and presidents exhibited in existing conditions. We 
need not consider those weaker colleges which have no registrar,— - 
in which the president or dean or some professorial hack keeps 
some lists chiefly for making reports to parents. Consider only 
the institutions that pay for the officer and the office, and yet 
cannot tell the number of regular students, the number of condi- 
tioned students, the number of special students, or the number 
enrolled in any department. What is the moral purport of the 
fact that so many universities, including some of the largest and 
best supported, publish deceitful statements about the number of 
their students? In such statements it is often impossible to 
differentiate from regular students girls taking piano lessons, or 
farmers' boys taking a several-Aveeks course in cheese making. I 
have written and telegraphed to the registrars of state universities 
begging to be told the number of students enrolled in a certain 
department, and have been answered that the registrar did not 
have at hand and could not readily discover the information re- 
quested. 

The first thing to be determined about the registrar is his proper 
function and place in the organization. Prevalent faults of omis- 
sion and commission spring from thoughtless or illogical decisions 
of that question. With it rightly decided, many troubles would 
cease, and procedures would naturally flow in appropriate and more 
serviceable channels. In existing practice the most various re- 
sponsibilities and powers are imposed on registrars, and the office 
is often fundamentally misplaced in the organization The funda- 
mental principle is correctly stated by President Eliot in his work 
on University Administration : "Every faculty should keen care 
ful records of the academic career and attainments of every student 
under its charge, and should found on these records its recommen- 
dations for the conferring of degrees, and of all other academic 
distinctions; and it should provide for the preservation of these 
records, and their secure transmission from century to century.^^ 



180 eegistear's office 

President Eliot is regarded as the chief champion of what is called 
the strong presidential administration; but he is too clear minded 
not to place the registrar's office under its proper jurisdiction. It 
is inherently faculty business. The registrar's direct chief should 
be the dean of the general faculty, just as the accounting office 
should look directly to the business manager. If the registrar's 
office is made an appanage of the president's office, it is dislocated 
at the outset. If the president should conceive some im.proyement 
to be instituted in the registrar's office, he ought to recommend it 
to the dean, or in the faculty — according to the nature of the de- 
sired orders. The registrar should receive his orders from the 
dean of the general faculty. 

It is advantageous to locate the cffices of all the deans in prox- 
imity to the registrars office, so as to avoid any need of duplicating 
records. But it is better to duplicate his part of the records for 
the conveniece of an isolated dean, than to break the completeness 
of the files in the registrar's office. If any branch of the institution 
is located apart from its main seat, a branch registrar's office should 
be there maintained, reporting to the main office its general statis- 
tics in accordance with the system adopted. 

It would carry us too far into details to discuss the particular 
facts that should be recorded in a satisfactory registrar's office. In 
his annual report for 1909 President Pritchett makes a brief com- 
ment on the college registration office, and offers a good suggestion 
concerning concert of action among the offices of college regis- 
trars : 

"It is not easy to steer midway between too mueli machinery and too 
little. The facts are, however, that while in some of the larger institu- 
tions the registration office deals in too many blanks and collects some 
useless information, in the main this work in both large and small institu- 
tions is done in an indifferent and unsystematic way. . . . There is 
no very general agreement as to just what facts a well conducted college 
should gather concerning its students and in what way these can be most 
simply recorded. ... In many colleges the simpler forms of regis- 



registrar's office 181 

tration and filing have not b^en introduced, and much labor is wasted 
in caring for material which, under modern methods, can be handled in 
a very simple and effective manner. 

"It seems clear that while the registration office and the registrar ought 
not to be burdened with unnecessary details, there are certain facts con- 
cerning all matriculated students which ought to be kept on file and 
accessible to any inquirer entitled to know them. It goes without saying 
that every college should keep in a simple and accessible form such facts 
as show the basis upon which a student is admitted and upon which he 
is promoted. ... I venture to suggest that colleges which have been 
lacking in this matter can profitably examine some of the simple and 
more effective forms of registration in u&e in many colleges, and a dis- 
tinct gain in uniformity and comparability of registration statistics could 
be had by some concert of action among registration offices as to the 
information which ought to be kept on file and as to the simplest and 
easiest way of doing this." 

The essentials are plain enough^ and it is far better to keep a 
minimum clearl}^ and effectively^ than to attempt the vagaries that 
are often demanded by a certain sort of specialists as grist for their 
statistics mills. It would be a vast gain if the colleges would keep 
and rightly use the records for which they are directly responsible. 
They may pretermit dubious investigations of life-histories from 
ancestry and birth and continued beyond graduation, etc. Facili- 
ties of the registrar's office might be put at the disposal of some 
member of a department of sociology who wished to conduct such 
researches; but they are not a part of the business management 
for which the faculty is responsible^ and which it is the function of 
the registrar to discharge under the faculty's orders and regula- 
tions. 

I believe that the incongruous functions and powers often com- 
mitted to registrars are a fruitful cause of mismanagement. In 
some universities the registrar is a sort of president's factotum, and 
is delegated to perform or to control almost anything that may 
come into the head of a president who regards himself as ""the 
whole works" and is ready to assume instanter direct control of 



182 ADVERTISING 

any function whatsoever. Some registrars are thus commissioned 
by presidents to make the schedule of lecture hours, to take entire 
charge of entrance requirements, etc. The things mentioned be- 
long to the faculty's jurisdiction, and in the procedures referred to 
the faculty is either wantonly overridden^ or seduced into volun- 
tary dereliction. The faculty may properly instruct the registrar 
to deal with entrance requirements in so far as they are a matter 
af plain routine; but it is little short of unseemly to commit the 
professional responsibility and discretion involved in irregular 
admissions to a clerical office. That function distinctly belongs to 
the duties of the faculty's dean — its chief executive officer. In the 
University of Wisconsin (three years ago, and probably still) the 
registrar passes on all admissions and his decisions are not subject 
to revision by the faculty. It is, of course, possible that the Wis- 
consin registrar is personally competent to exercise that professional 
discretion; but, if so, it would seem wasteful of human material to 
use him mainly as a record keeper of enrollments and grade marks. 
Only exceptional conditions could justify such confusions of normal 
functions. In general the registrar's office should be a seat of cler- 
ical work, extended beyond its special function as convenient, but 
never made a seat of administrative authority or professorial dis- 
cretion. 

Advertising 

Any candid survey of the business management of colleges and 
universities must consider the methods of advertising that have 
been developed in recent years to such large proportions and im- 
moral propensities. A university's bureau of publicity is, and 
ought to be, an immediate adjunct to the president's office. The 
policies and conduct of the institution's direct appeals to the pub- 
lic are rightly placed under the hand of its chief executive officer. 
Nothing exposes to outside observers more intimately and clearly 
the real spirit and standards of the administration, than the style 
and matter of its deliberately framed and paid-for advertising. 



ADVERTISING 183 

It is evident that in addition to catalogs and bulletins of infor- 
mation and financial reports, there is also a need of worthy publi- 
cations maintained by the university or its alumni, and of occasional 
contributions to the public press by responsible wi'iters. After ex- 
plaining the need and value of such means for securing public 
knowledge of a university's activities and achievements, President 
Eliot expresses the opinion : "It is extremely doubtful if any of 
the ordinary forms of advertising do a university any good." The 
vices of college advertising inhere in competitive advertising, 
whether injected into proper publications, or issued as naked bids 
for students. 

It is not possible to ascertain from financial reports the amount 
of money spent on advertising. Distinctive advertising for the 
purpose of luring students is not distinguished from printing of 
every sort and necessary public notices of examination dates, etc. 
The foimder of Leland Stanford Junior University directed that 
no part of his gift should be spent in advertising. The restric- 
tion was not improperly imposed on that definite source of the insti- 
tion^s income, and it may exert a good moral influence; but it 
would be a mistake to attempt to prohibit advertising by any law 
or sweeping rule. Arbitrary prohibition would be inherently de- 
moralizing and would be circumvented. There are better and more 
effective incentives to right conduct. Forcible restraint may hold 
wretches in order, but cannot lead men to virtue. 

The Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has made 
extensive and prolonged study of college advertising. Its annual 
reports for 1909 and 1912 devote chapters to the subject. In the 
present study we need pay no attention to the excesses of the 
thoroughly fraudulent institutions that live by advertising, prom- 
ising every advantage of university education with no semblance of 
means to fulfill the promise. Some of these have recently been 
closed by the imprisonment of their presidents, following prosecu- 
tions by the federal postal authorities. We shall consider only repu- 



184 ADVERTISING 

table institutions ; bnt it should be understood that his historical in- 
vestigations led President Pritchett to the conclusion that the 
weaker and younger took their advertising cue from the older and 
stronger institutions. Some conception of the practice and conse- 
quences of com^petitive advertising by colleges and universities may 
be formed from the following very temperate discussion condensed 
from the two reports mentioned above : 

"One of the factors of American college and university management of 
rapid growth in recent years is the practice of systematic advertising. 
. . . The practice has assumed proportions which no one could have 
anticipated. . . . 

"Paid advertising by old and famous institutions of higher learning is 
apparently distinctively an American practice. One can scarcely imagine 
Balliol or Pembroke or the Universities of Berlin or Paris sending out 
the sort of advertising literature which Harvard and Chicago dis- 
tribute. . . . 

"Harvard College appears to have led in this matter, as in many others. 
The first advertisement of Harvard in the Atlantic Monthly was printed 
in February, 1870, and at that time occasioned much discussion as being 
a departure from old-time ideals of academic dignity. Since that day the 
habit has spread, the smaller and younger colleges taking their cue from 
the older institutions and painting the advantages of the college training 
in colors more and more glowing. A college which cannot equal Harvard's 
equipment finds it quite possible to outdo the university in its advertise- 
ments. . . . 

"One of the most common educational advertisements to catch the eye 
is that of the University of Chicago in connection with its correspondence 
department, which reads as follows: 'Home Study. The University of 
Chicago offers Correspondence Courses in over 30 subjects for Teachers, 
Writers, Social Workers, Ministers, Physicians, Bankers, and students 
desiring to finish either a High School or College course. One-half the 
work for a Bachelor's degree may thus be done. The University of 
Chicago, Div. W., Chicago, 111.' The suggestion contained in the last two 
lines concerning a degree earned in large measure by correspondence is 
rather more of a bid for candidates for degrees than is made by other 
institutions of corresponding dignity and scholarly standing. . . . 



ADVERTISING 185 

"In the present crowded condition of the state universities of the central 
west one reads with some degree of wonder in a single edition of a New 
York paper formal advertisements of the Universities of Wisconsin, Mich- 
igan, and Illinois. . . . 

"Even a superficial examination of the practice of advertising shows 
that it has consequences of no mean order for the college and for education, 

"One of these has just been alluded to, namely, that in the competition 
by advertising the weakest college can outshine the strongest university. 
Thus, the Valparaiso University, which has recently begun to put adver-. 
tisements into the magazines, having apparently been corrupted by the 
example of the older institutions, has a more alluring advertisement than 
some of the greatest universities. It boasts a larger enrollment and offers 
to meet the student at any stage of his education for less money than any 
other bidder. And yet this institution, notwithstanding the fact that it 
has given educational help to many who otherwise might never have got 
outside their home facilities, is not a university at all. It exists on the 
inequalities of our present educational organization. Unfortunately it is 
undertaking to do many things which it can only do badly; but in the 
advertising competition it has every advantage, for it keeps a depart-* 
ment store. . . . 

"Another objection to formal advertising lies in the tendency to em- 
phasize and advertise the weakest part of an institution. This is the 
natural function of direct advertising whose purpose is to draw students 
to the courses which are not full. For example, after the Lawrence Scien- 
tific School changed from a school of science under its original teachers 
to a distinctive engineering school, it remained for a number of years a 
weak school, but during all this period it was the most advertised part 
of the university. When one sees a Harvard advertisement today he is 
not likely to find mentioned in it the strong and well established parts 
of the university, but the newly inaugurated school of business adminis- 
tration which has not yet found itself, but which attracts possible students 
with the inviting claim that 'training is specialized to prepare for the 
lines of commerce and manufacturing,' an advertisement strongly sug- 
gestive of the correspondence schools. 

"University publications under the advertising stimulus tend to assume 
more and more the nature of advertising reminders, not dignified or 
scholarly statements of the work and resources of a particular institution. 
Let any alumnus go over the literature he has received in the last year 



186 ADVERTISING 

from his alma mater and see how much of it brings back the serious and 
scholarly side of university life and how much of it belongs to the side 
of promotion, 

"Still more far-reaching and influential is the advertising habit in 
affecting the organization of the university and its attitude to its own 
alumni and to the public. Most advertising is indirect. Representatives 
of the university travel over the country and meet the pupils in secondary 
schools. University professors are sent on long journeys to meet possible 
students. The alumni are organized into groups which in large measure 
drop the natural and desirable social relations of alumni and become what 
are known in the west as 'booster' clubs. 

"Again, an employment bureau is organized and the student is urged 
to come to a given university on the ground that a position will be found 
for him upon graduation. . . . 

"The question of advertising comes down in the end to one not alone of 
good taste, but of far-sighted policy. . . . Most institutions have taken 
it up, if they have gone into it at all, without very much thought of the 
extent to which it may be carried, and often in response to the solicitations 
of advertising agents. It is when one comes to view the practice at large 
and notes the effect of the development of the advertising habit in the 
institutions themselves that he begins to have doubts as to its wisdom. 
There can be no question that it has lured into the colleges many men 
who were unfit. . . . Advertising so far as the student is concerned 
has been almost wholly bad. . . . No youth seeking a college educa- 
tion and no man looking toward the profession of law or of medicine 
ought to allow himself to be influenced in any measure by paid advertise- 
ments. ... To select the college or the medical school which one 
proposes to attend on the basis of paid advertisements is like selecting a 
wife through a correspondence bureau. ... 

"On the whole I am inclined to doubt whether any advertising of a true 
university pays in the large sense other than that which comes from the 
presence of great scholars and teachers, the possession of adequate equip- 
ment, and the attendance of a homogeneous, alert, earnest student body. 
This conviction is reflected today in the attitude of the more thoughtful 
and far-sighted university presidents." 

mi ' ■ ' 

Three years later the matter is taken up at still greater length 

in the last annual report, for the saddening reason that, "observa- 



ADVERTISING 187 

tion in the interval seems to indicate that the objectionable use 
of advertising in education has grown steadily'' : 

"To state in a few words what is the right function of advertising, so 
far as edncation is concerned, is not simple. This is evident when one 
considers the conception of the term as currently used, that is, the publi- 
cation in the printed page, by the authorities of the university, of informa- 
tion with regard to it. Such a definition includes in advertising such 
publications as the annual catalogue, the circulars of information con- 
cerning work, announcements of the opening and closing of terms, state- 
ments of the equipment and facilities of the institution, reports of its 
financial condition, and all other publications pertaining to its work and 
to the opportunities that it offers to students. Such st-atements appear 
partly in publications issued by the institution, partly in magazines and 
newspapers, and at times, in articles prepared under the authority of the 
institution and furnished to . newspapers. 

"It is clear enough that there is a legitimate use for the printed an- 
nouncements of a university and of the work that the institution does. 
The difficulty comes in drawing a line between that which is wise and 
right and that which is unwise and misleading. 

"A few principles may, I think, be laid down which should govern a 
oollege or university in dealing with this matter. An institution exercises 
a moral as well as an intellectual power, and the conditions that determine 
the nature of its use of advertising are founded partly upon moral con- 
siderations and partly upon those of academic good taste. 

"The first of these considerations I believe to be the determination that 
printed matter concerning an institution of learning shall be given out only 
for the purpose of enabling a possible inquirer to find what he seeks, never 
with the idea of attracting students in the competitive sense. 

"Secondly, in stating the facilities which the institution offers, every 
effort should be made to be clear, brief, and accurate, so that the inquirer 
may really gain from the printed statement some conception of the actual 
situation described. 

"Finally, in announcing the facilities which the college offers, the claims 
put forward should be sincere, honest, and modest. Modesty is an old- 
fashioned virtue, but there is none which becomes a college better, or 
which ought more truly to characterize the academic spirit, 

"One who examines with care the publications of even our best and 



188 ADVERTISING 

strongest institutions will realize that these elementary conditions are 
seldom fulfilled. 

"For example, the catalogues and other printed circulars issued by the 
stronger universities are, in many cases, so intricate and so technically 
worded that the general reader can learn little from them. There are 
very few catalogues which would not gain enormously in clearness and 
availability by the mere process of exclusion and condensation. When, for 
example, catalogues approach the two and one-half pound bulk of that 
of the University of Minnesota, they become almost impossible. . . . 

"On the other hand, a brief yet adequate summary of the equipment 
and endowment, of the income and expenditures, such as has been recently 
included in their catalogues by the University of Virginia and the Catholic 
University of America, is most suggestive information for the parent and 
the student. Such statements usually appear only in the annual report 
of a university, if at all, and yet there is scarcely any other information 
which is more generally indicative of the real character of the institution. 
If the more pretentious colleges and universities which announce long 
assortments of courses should print side by side with these announcements 
the financial resources upon which they rely to carry out the work offered, 
few would be deceived by their exaggerated claims. Unfortunately, the 
parent or the boy who examines the high-sounding and attractive courses 
offered in the catalogues seldom inquires as to the actual means in hand 
for making good the promises. All colleges appear equally honest to him. 

"Perhaps there are few other places where the catalogues of all Ameri- 
can and Canadian colleges are studied more systematically than in the 
oflaee of the Foundation, and with the purpose of obtaining information 
as to the actual work offered. It is through this experience that the 
Foundation speaks from the standpoint of one using the catalogues for 
the ends that they are supposed to serve. One cannot go through this 
work without considering whether the primary purpose of many of these 
publications is to afford correct information. Certainly there are few 
catalogues that would not be the better if rewritten from this point of 
view. Whose need is the publication to serve? Once this is consciously 
recognized, clearness, brevity, and accuracy are apt to follow. . . . 

"An example of what ought to be shunned may be found in a recent 
circular of Reed College, at Portland, Oregon, which includes in its 
biographies of professors, editorships of college annuals, class votes on 
popularity, degrees that are expected, academic biographies of professors' 



ADVERTISING 189 

wives, the number of their children, and, finally, portraits, which last 
are ever unsatisfactory intellectual documents. All of this savors of that 
form of professorial self-advertising which punishes itself by calling forth 
not admiration, but ridicule. This new and progressive institution might 
well have set a better example. . . . 

"A fair consideration of the tendencies now evident in our American 
colleges, and of the enormous number who are drawn into the colleges 
without preparation, will convince any candid inquirer that advertising 
has no legitimate use today in education in the United States beyond 
such straightforward, clear statements of the work offered as I have 
indicated. Advertising beyond that point is nearly always wrong, and in 
nearly every instance does harm. Any college advertising which aims to 
attract students to an institution or to a department because that institu- 
tion or department desires more students, is almost sure to be harmful. 
College advertising, on the other hand, ought to endeavor to make such 
an honest display of the institution's qualifications as will aid the student 
in a wise choice of the department or the institution best suited to meet 
his needs. The unfair side of such advertising is clearly shown by the 
almost universal tendency to advertise the newest and weakest part of an 
institution. A fair statement of an institution's equipment, endowment, 
expenditure; the cost to the student; the number, training, and scholarly 
accomplishment of its staff; its requirements for admission and grad- 
uation, — these things are illuminating and helpful. Anything beyond this 
aims at institutional aggrandizement rather than student information. 

"Besides these direct methods of advertising, there are numerous others 
which are indirect, of which the most common have come to be the pub- 
licity bureau, the alumni organization, the honorary degree, and the free 
scholarship. 

•'To deal with these agencies in full w^ould require too great a space 
and go beyond the purpose of this statement, which has for its object not 
so much a complete account of the various methods of advertising as an 
endeavor to point out the spirit and tendency that are involved, and the 
necessity for the honest college to stand fairly toward it. 

"The publicity bureau may be helpful or harmful according to the spirit 
of its conduct. An honest, interesting, and clear account of work done 
in an institution can do only good, and the wider its circulation the 
better. On the other hand, a publication which purports to be scholarly 
can be made as sensational as the most advanced yellow journal could 



190 ADVERTISING 

desire. Discoveries may be hinted at which arouse public expectation. 
Ordinary routine work may be described so as to appear the latest 
scientific research. A mediocre book may be exploited as of extraordinary 
merit. The entire effect and value of such an agency depends upon the 
spirit in which it is conducted. 

"The attitude of alumni associations toward the institution with which 
they are connected may be characterized in the same way. Such asso- 
ciations may become most helpful and stimulating to the scholarly and 
moral life of the college, or they may be transformed, and unfortunately 
too often are transformed into agencies for soliciting students and 
money. . . . 

"The conferring of honorary degrees may be justified upon many 
grounds, so long as these degrees are conferred with discrimination and 
justice, as they are in many of our institutions, but it would be difficult 
to understand the academic ground upon which some of the large and 
some of the small institutions confer these supposed honors. . . . 

"The use of fellowships and scholarships as a bait to draw students is 
a story too long to tell in a single paragraph. It is known of all college 
men, but the public does not realize the extent to which this trade has 
gone, for in many institutions it has become little better than a means 
of competition with neighbors. While in most cases the older institu- 
tions have been more careful in this matter in their undergraduate depart- 
ments, the distribution of fellowships in their graduate schools has gen- 
erally gone on merrily. Without these bids, very many graduate schools 
would be entirely bereft of students. Every institution should state, in 
its financial report, the exact number of students to whom it gives free 
tuition, and in each case some sort of accounting should be made to the 
trustees of the institution as to the reasons for such action. It has been 
almost impossible to collect accurate statistics showing the extent to 
which this practice has grown, but any examination of the treasurer's 
report of most institutions will show a large discrepancy between the 
number of students enrolled and the receipts from tuition which naturally 
would result from such a body. No practice has done more to demoralize 
educational conditions than this competitive use of free scholarships, or 
of those partially free. It is one of the forms of competition which has 
done most to bring students, who should have remained in their high 
schools, into the weaker colleges, and to weaken the intellectual ten- 
dencies of even the better colleges by the presence of more students than 
they can deal with wisely. The man who is seeking a good college for his 



ADVERTISING 191 

son or his daughter should distrust the college which solicits his child's 
attendance, and most of all when the inducement takes the form of a 
bonus such as a free or partially free scholarship. ... A scholar- 
ship supported by endowment and conferred on right grounds may be a 
good thing for your son ( though even here there are dangers ) , but a 
scholarship tendered by a college in order to get your son's attendance 
is of the same nature as a rebate at your grocery store, — it is an imposi- 
tion on those who pay in full. 

"Those who have been most successful in the use of advertising methods 
in education are wont to reply to such criticism by pointing to their 
results. In the minds of most persons the bringing together of three 
thousand students — however immature and ill-taught — is an answer to 
all arguments. This is success. It is exactly the same success that the 
patent medicine advertiser achieves when through advertising methods he 
educates a whole region to buy and drink his nostrum. When his con- 
stituency has grown to many thousands he has achieved success and the 
end justifies the means. The process by which some of our largest col- 
leges have been built up is very like that. 

"The answer to the advocacy of the patent medicine process of adver- 
tising in education is not entirely simple; not only because the slow 
process of sincerity and good taste is less often appreciated, but alsa 
because in all educational upbuilding, faith is a necessary factor. If ai 
college never took a step till the financial outcome were absolutely secure^ 
our progress would be slow indeed. It still remains true, however, that 
in education there is every reason why faith and devotion should join 
hands with sincerity and honesty rather than with pretense and super- 
ficiality. After all, is not this question of growing less rapidly and 
more soundly the question which faces our democracy in all the 
fields of endeavor — industry, education, politics? . . . Is it a 

success educationally when, by such methods as have been employed, three 
thousand immature youths are gathered into one institution that calls 
itself a university? Does not this process foster just those national ten- 
dencies which the university is meant to counteract, not to quicken? I do 
not think one can set out to answer these questions fairly without coming 
to the conclusion that the university and the college have lost intellectually 
and morally in proportion as they have given themselves up to the adver- 
tising! spirit, and that in the process a false ideal has been set up as to 
what constitutes educational success. Whatever may have been true 
thirty years ago, it is clear that today we need not more colleges, but 



192 ADVERTISING 

fewer colleges, not morei students, but better prepared students, and that 
the opportunity both of the college and of the university to contribute to 
national progress lies not in bigness, but in greater simplicity and thor- 
oughness; not in advertising, but in modest performance. Advertising in 
education is not so much a disease as a symptom. 

"In a word, competitive advertising clearly has no place in education. 
Independent advertising has its place only when it is informational and 
thoroughly honest. Co-operative advertising should not be too fine a 
thing to hope for. We may yet see a group of our best universities issue 
in co-operation a comparative statement of their offerings. It would be 
gratifying if the Association of American Universities and the National 
Association of State Universities should unite their efforts toward some 
such end. The matter was aptly put by the principal of McGill University 
in an address on 'Inter-University Arrangements for Post-Graduate and 
Research Students,' at a recent Conference of British Universities in 
London: 'There is a growing conviction that competition in post-graduate 
work is at present unduly expensive, sacrifices the student, and hinders 
scholarship in order to further personal, institutional, and regional emula- 
tion. When our graduate students have some accredited method of learn- 
ing that if they want to study a certain subject they will find that sub- 
ject best taught in a certain university, we shall be in much better and 
more highly organized condition than at present. The problem is not free 
from difficulties, but it will be found as time goes on that increased 
co-operation shows the direction in which a solution ought to be sought.' 

"While it may not be easy in the conditions which surround our edu- 
cational institutions at this day to indicate with exactness what the 
limitations are which a conscientious and scholarly college should impose 
in its advertising, it is possible to point out some of the things which 
clearly ought not to be done. I venture, therefore, to refer to a few 
directions in which it seems clear that the advertising spirit has got the 
upper hand of the scholarly ideal. 

"It is a common practice, particularly among the smaller institutions, 
to advertise themselves as the equals of the best. . . . 

"An even more common practice is the reckless use of superlatives. 
. . . Such a competition in the irresponsible use of language defeats 
its own end. . . . The school advertising pages of our magazines are 
constantly enveloped in an iridescent spray of such adjectives. Each 
institution has a location that is either magnificent, glorious, unrivaled, 
or ideal; its equipment is thoroughly or completely modern, remarkable. 



ADVERTISING 193 

excellent, or superb; its faculty is composed of experienced, cultured, 
superior, distinguished, leading, and inspiring teachers. The advantages 
and opportunities of each institution are unusual, exceptional, rare, unsur- 
passed, matchless, and pre-eminent. Each possesses eitlier the finest col- 
lege spirit with the highest ideals, or a delightful, dominant, romantic 
tone of culture. In short, every institution has every college activity. 
They are all unsurpassed, unique, pre-eminent, and ideal. 

"What is the effect of all this upon the reader? The well-informed 
man sighs and turns away. The earnest inquirer endures the economic 
waste of the cost of verification added to the cost of competition. The 
merely credulous reader, and his name is legion, eagerly sends ill-prepared 
students to institutions that are educationally futile, or worse, and the 
intellectual end of these students is oftentimes full of bitterness. For so 
far as the student is concerned, such advertising is almost wholly bad, and 
so long as people trust it, the weakest institutions can outshine the 
strongest, and the unworthy will continue to live by advertising. 

''It is simple fairness to the public that the nature of this sort of 
bidding should be brought into the light. This is the only reason for 
describing here the most ingeniously offensive piece of college advertising 
that it has been my fortune to meet. This is a series of weekly full-page 
notices which appeared in the United Presbyterian, published at Pitts- 
burgh, from October 12 to December 14, 1911, inclusive, as part of a 
'campaign' to collect $250,000 for [a certain college in Ohio]. ... It 
is astonishing that advertisements bearing such evident marks of insin- 
cerity and vulgarity should be admitted to the columns of a reputable 
religious journal. . . . 

"There are two phases of the question which I venture to commend to 
the consideration oi the colleges themselves. 

"The first is the disappointment of the boy who has been deceived. 
It would astonish many to know how many men there are in the United 
States today who feel bitterly toward institutions which tempted them 
into their walls on reports which later have been discovered to be untruth- 
ful. This resentment will in future years become stronger, . . . 

"Finally the present situation in American education in this matter 
imposes special obligations upon the conscientious institutions. Just so 
long as the old and well-established college lends itself to a sensational 
and misleading exploitation of its own advantages, just so long as it 
departs from the fair standards of academic sincerity and good tasLe, it 
furnishes example and inspiration for the reckless and irresponsible col- 



194 ADVERTISING 

lege to go far beyond it, and it makes an excuse which the commercial 
vendor of professional education is only too eager to seize. There is here 
for the honest college a duty to the public which touches its moral leader- 
ship very closely. It is part of such leadership to make clear to individual 
citizens the limitations which go with freedom no less than the privileges 
and the rights of freedom. It does this in the only effective way when 
it conducts its own business not only within the law, but also within the 
limits of academic sincerity, honesty, and good taste." 

I have already remarked that nothing exposes to outside observers 
more intimately and clearly the real spirit and standards of the 
administrative head of a university^ and of his chosen lieutenants in 
such business, than the style and manner of its deliberately framed 
and paid for advertising. And it may be added that no revelation in 
such pronouncements is more significant than the tone and degree 
in which protestations* about "democracy" are dragged into incon- 
gruous connections. Of course, a genuine and sympathetic under- 
standing of democracy in a legitimate sense, may be an import- 
ant characteristic of a university; but manners, intelligence, and 
sincerity are all sinisterly implicated if scurrying and sputtering 
avowals provoke the retort "Methinks thou dost protest too much." 
A curious document could be made by collating from catalogs and 
circulars, issued by state universities, quotations in which the words 



*Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, in his book "Great American Universities" 
(1910), alludes in two passages to the manner and habit of proclaiming 
its "democracy" met with by him at every university he visited. At one 
point he checks himself at an inadvertent tendency to describe "a notice- 
able atmosphere of informality and congeniality about the place," as an 
atmosphere of "democracy," — ^because in view of university usage the word 
would have no meaning. "Every university," he says, "boasts the purest 
brand." . . . "When I started out on my quizzing tour, I had at the 
head of the list of questions which I proposed to ask, 'Does the spirit of 
democracy prevail in this University?' But I soon dropped that question 
as fruitless, because it was answered everywhere before I asked it, and 
always in the same way. There were two things about which each univer- 
sity visited agreed . . . the purity of their democracy and the beauty 
of their campus. In admitting deficiencies in other respects they were 
usually frank enough . . . but on these two they would acknowledge 
no superiors." 



ADVERTISING 195 

"democracy" and "democratic" occur in uses either logically absurd 
or grammatically incorrect. An appendix might deal with igno- 
rant uses of "citizenship." If the more substantive assertions 
about courses of study and equipment approach the level of false 
labels on food products or fraudulent claims for patent medicines, 
diatribes from the same sources against the latter will be as 
unavailing as inconsistent. It is an evil pass when a university 
forgets that there yet remains a goodly portion of the "people" 
who appreciate sincerity and decorum and are still conversant with 
the English language. 



IV. THE EXECUTIVE OFEICEE 

Many of the vexed questions concerning the place and power and 
functions of the president of an American university have been 
discussed in preceding chapters especially in the latter sections 
of the chapter treating of the governing (i. e., legislative) hoard. 
With such a board an executive officer is a necessity^ unless the 
most fundamental principle of organization is to be violated — 
bodies should legislate^ individuals execute. The chief organic 
disorder, which has led some to wish to abolish the presidential 
office, has inhered in a maladjustment of the proper relation be- 
tween the board of regents and the faculty. The main troubles 
with and of the board^s executive officer have been natural conse- 
quences of that disorganizing maladjustment. The needed read- 
justment of that fundamental relation has been discussed at length, 
and very practicable ordinances have been proposed which would 
accomplish it in a simple yet effective way. I have ever pointLu 
out, however, that the good organization would onlv make good 
administration more natural and easier, and that a right spirit and 
true enlightment in individuals would correct direct administra- 
tive abuses, whatever the form of organization. President Schur- 
man, while recommending organic arrangements for faculty parti- 
cipation in the government of the university (because a bad organ- 
ization will in the long run lead to the survival of bad or weak 
individuals), reminded that it was possible to accomplish the end 
in view "even without institutional reorganization" : 

"Eespect for personality, the spirit of brotherhood, devotion to 
scholarship and science, and zealous cooperation will ensure har- 
mony, efficiency, and progress even under the present form of 
university organization and administration. ... If stress is laid 
on duty and service and not on 'rights and prerogatives, if the 
university is conceived not as a monarchy or aristocracy or ^mob- 



THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER 197 

ocracy^ but as a genuine brotherhood in which the president is 
merely the first servant of tlie institution, there would seem to 
be little diflSculty, given a reasonable amount of tact and forbear- 
ance, of administering the American university as at present organ- 
ized to the satisfaction of all parties. One danger indeed lurks in 
the disposition of some presidents to identify themselves with the 
board of trustees, to adopt an exclusively administrative attitude, 
to become merely men of business and men of affairs, and to lose 
touch with the work and sympathy with the aims and ideals of the 
faculty, which, of course, constitute the supreme object of the insti- 
tution. If by any kind of reorganization this danger can be 
averted, the reorganization should be cordially welcomed. A 
university whose president does not embody and faithfully inter- 
pret the spirit of the scholars and scientists who essentially con- 
stitute the institution, is to all intents and purposes without a head. 
It is doubtful, however, whether any kind of organization will 
save our universities from occasional disasters of this sort. The 
one remedy is cultivation by the faculty of a sense of responsibility 
foi the welfare and advancement of the institution and a readiness 
to advise on all matters directly or indirectly connected with the 
essential functions of the university of which they are the con- 
stituted organs and guardians.^^* 

We may confidently assume that a university needs not merely a 
head but a permanent head, in order to secure good work, needed 
cooperation, and attainable progi'ess. "We may, therefore, devote 
all critical thought to forming the best conception of the president's 
office and to discovering the dangers against which he may guard or 
be guarded. In so far as formal organization can safeguard the 
president and the institution from administrative abuses, I have 
proposed and expounded (pages 125-137) what seems to me the 
needed arransrements. 



*Some of President Sclmrman's suggestions about such voluntary atti- 
tudes, which more especially concern the faculty, are given in the next 
chapter. 



198 CONCEPTION" OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

Full Conception of the Presidential Office 

In the first place, it should be clearly conceived that the presi- 
dent has some legitimate and responsible relation to ever^' sphere 
and part of the institution and to every person connected with it. 
It ought to be equally clear that his proper relation can very sel- 
dom, if ever, be dictatorial control. A correct general statement 
of the elements of a proper conception is given by President Schur- 
man: "This head, while of course he need not control^ must par- 
ticipate in all phases of the life and activity of the university, not 
only because the university as a whole is entitled to his service 
but also in order that he may have the knowledge and experience 
qualifying him to be a faithful exponent and representative of the 
institution both in the academic community and in the larger world 
beyond." There should never be any question whether the presi- 
dent ought to concern himself with the state or activities of any 
part of the institution. He should know, as far as possible, 
the state and understand the interests and wants of every part. A 
proper functional organization would leave him with all the 
authority or influence (as the case might be) belonging to his 
proper responsibility, without interfering with the responsibility 
and corresponding authority of any other person. 

"The conception of a president as an autocrat on the bridge is an 
error," said President Alderman in an address on assuming the 
duties of President of the University of Virginia. "Between 
the president and faculty," he continued, "a loyal, hearty, helpful 
relation should exist. If he depends on himself alone he will do 
but little and that little not very well. His opinions must gain 
their weight from their wisdom rather than from their source. His 
truest strength lies in the power to divine the value of others rather 
than in any power of his own of action or of speech. For him 
there must be the open mind, the sympathetic spirit, the patient 
temper, the sleepless eye; and his power should be commensurate 
with his responsibility." These are magnanimous words. !N"o at- 



CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 199 

tentive reader will misunderstand the nature of the "power" or 
of the "responsibility," . as conceived by President Alderman; but, 
as additional light upon his mind and character for those who 
do not know him personally, I cannot forbear quoting what I re- 
gard as a superlative tribute to a university president. The testi- 
mony was borne by Professor William Benjamin Smith of The Tu- 
lane University of x\labama after President Alderman's departure 
from Tulane to Virginia : "His relations with the members of the 
faculty were open and friendly, his temper generous and apprecia- 
tive; he valued zealous support, but no way discouraged conscien- 
tious opposition." It has been said of some other university presi- 
dents that they endured opposition with candor or with charity; 
but of this man it is said, he no ivay discouraged conscientious 
opposition. N"o stronger or more crucial evidence of true greatness 
of mind and character could be given. 

What, then, is the nature of the power and responsibility which 
President Alderman says should be commensurate ? The presi- 
dent's opinions ''must gain their weight from their wisdom/' he 
says, and indicates that a main responsibility is to "divine the 
value of others." The president is also responsible for "well-con- 
ceived plans," he states in the same context. The power and lib- 
erty to carry out such plans rests on trust and confidence. He does 
not mean that the president needs legislative power. The regents 
and the faculty should legislate: the president is the chief adviser 
of both bodies, and the executive officer of the former. In the 
matter of appointments to and promotions in the faculty the 
president's responsibility should be absolute, and therefore his 
nominations should always be confirmed by the governing board; 
but even here, as has been explained, orderly consultation with 
a council representing the faculty and the report to the board of 
regents and to the faculty of that council's concurrence or difference 
of opinion, is the facultA''s right and the president's best safe- 
guard against mistakes and misunderstandings. 



200 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

^'.His power should be commensurate with his responsibility," is a 
valid principle always and everywhere for every one commissioned 
to perform discretionary acts. It is as true for the professor as 
for the president. Of course, the terms of the proposition are 
convertible — ^his responsibility should be commensurate with his 
power. Nothing could be more foolishly rash than to give power 
without imposing commensurate responsibility; and nothing could 
be more unjustly impractical than to impose responsibility with- 
out giving commensurate power. Yet, strange to say, each of 
these mistakes is made by many governing boards and administra- 
tive officers. Boards of school trustees often impose responsibility 
upon school superintendents and withhold the commensurate 
power, and some university presidents seem disposed to treat fac- 
ulties (both corporately and in their individual members) in the 
same way. University regencies, also, have commonly usurped 
the proper authority of faculties (a mistake which we have con- 
sidered at length), and some such boards have rashly assumed 
administrative functions that had been or should be committed to 
presidents. As no respectable apologv for the last mentioned folly 
is ever attempted, it need only be m.entioned as a discountenanced 
affront to civilization. University regents and school boards of 
large cities more characteristically make the opposite mistake — 
giving power to administrative officers without imposing com- 
mensurate responsibility. There have been university presidents 
and city school superintendents, in the United States, whose known 
policy, besides being arbitrary, was one of indirection, who by 
nature and by design dealt faithlessly with all parties, misrep- 
resenting positively and negatively, by distortion and by suppres- 
sion to the public, to the faculty or teachers, and to the governing 
boards. Those in supreme authority have known the facts in a 
general way, yet such officers have held practically irresponsible 
power until removed for some extraneous cause, not unrelated 
probably but incidental, and after indefinitely prolonged admin- 



CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 201 

istrations. How would it be possible for governing boards to make 
such a mistake if they understood that an organism cannot be 
successfully administered without conserving its proper organiza- 
tion? 

Professor Joseph Jastrow of the University of Wisconsin, in an 
address to the National Conference of College and University 
Trustees, has described an illustrative instance : 

"A member of a faculty propounded to me the attitude of its president 
as a psychological problem. I was unable to give any enlightenment, 
but this is the enlightenment that I received, — the result of a careful 
inductive study. ( 1 ) Whenever President X announced to his surprised 
faculty that the hoard had adopted such and such a measure, it proved 
to mean that the president had proposed the measure to the wholly inno- 
cent board, and that it was a measure that the faculty, were it given a 
chance, would have cordially opposed. (2) When a measure was 'up* 
before the fsiculty, and opposition unexpectedly developed, an announce- 
ment was made by President X that there were reasons, which unfortu- 
nately he could not disclose, that really made the measure necessary — 
and this meant that if not approved by the faculty, the board would take 
the proposed step anyway. There were two other types of situations that 
entered into this psychological analysis; but they are too individual to 
make it proper to cite them." 

It would be a word "fitly spoken'^ if the next great inaugural of a 
university president were made the occasion of an indictment so 
plain and forceful that the governing boards of educational insti- 
tutions throughout the length and breadth of the land would be 
aroused and guided to apply true tests of administrative skill to 
administrative officers, so as to discover whether those officers are 
organizers or disorganizers and in order to hold them to a responsi- 
bility commensurate with their power. In the address referred 
to. President Alderman gave a brave hint in one Drief sentence: 
"It is commonly alleged against college presidents that they are 
liars.^^ He most justly hastened to add, "this is a tolerablv hasty 
generalization, like the famous one of the Psalmist's." No specia) 
research need be added to what has been offered in the present 



202 CONCEPTION- OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

study to disclose the main reasons why the selective processes by 
which college presidents ought to be chosen and retained, have 
not operated to cause them to be commonly included, as a class, 
rather among the understood exceptions to the psalmist's generali- 
zation about ^^11 men." The organic fault in the relation between 
the faculty (as a body) and the board of regents has placed presi- 
dents in an almost insuperably difficult position. If corruptible he 
will fall into duplicity and falsehood (often equivoeated as ^^diplo- 
mac}^") ; if incorruptible, the same orsfanic condition brings about 
so many misunderstandings that he will still be accused of dupli- 
city. 

Modern university presidents have had thrust upon them almost 
plenary powers. And most of them have lacked the philosophical 
faculty to understand, or have been too busy doing tangible things 
by the shortest cut, too engrossed in administration, to heed the 
fault in organization from which arise their worst troubles and 
which leads to their own most dangerous errors. "The academic 
comment," says Professor Jastrow, "that occasionally reaches the 
college president's ears to the effect that his troubles are largely of 
his own making, is intended to remind him that he encourages, or 
complacently accepts — does not, at all events, protest against and 
strive for the abolition of — the conditions out of which troubles 
naturally grow." 

As a temporary policy suitable to an acute malady, it might be 
well for many universities and for all that universities ought to 
foster and serve, if for several years they built no new buildings, 
added no new departments, and devoted all available wisdom and 
effort to the correction of internal disorders, to the securing for fac- 
ulty and students conditions favorable to the purposes for which 
students and professors should come together, and to the forma- 
tion and upholding of right ideals of scholarship and science, of 
conduct and life. There is, indeed, no inherent reason why the one 
could not be done without leaving the other undone; but by way 
of emphasis and self-discipline sometimes abstinence may be 



CONCEPTION" OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 203 

a more suitable regimen than temperance, for a limited period 
after an opposite excess. 

Director Davenport, of the University of Illinois, in the address 
quoted in a previous chapter, digressed from his main themes 
to show the great injustice to the president in ^^the present mania 
for doing everything by administrative control" : 

"There is very little room for, or need of, authority in the daily oper- 
ations of the University. . . . The objects to be gained are not mass 
effects to be acliieved by onslaught and team work as on the battle ground 
and the football field. They are rather a complicated series of achieve- 
ments to be won, each by individual effort or by well considered co-oper- 
ation. And if the state universities ever assume the proportions of which 
they are capable, or if they ever succeed in serving the public to their 
limits it will be only through the power of individual initiative and the 
stimulus of individual responsibility, acting in many lines. . . . 

"Nor is this fatal to good organization or strong, even invincible, admin- 
istration. Every man holds his place by sufferance; every man is respon- 
sible for results, and aside from all this, a good and wise president will 
command leadership by the principle of the universal recognition of a 
superior mind without demanding it through the exercise of authority. 
. . . He who' puts his hand upon the estimates and the personnel and 
the general policies will control the situation, so far as authority can 
control it for good. . . . 

"The inevitable results of the present mania for doing everything b^ 
administrative control are to destroy individual initiative, to hamper the 
work, and in the end to break down even the administration itself, and 
destroy it for its better purposes. . . . 

"The department details are both logically and physically outside the 
president's range of duties or responsibilities. The disposition to regard 
him as personally and officially responsible for department details is as 
cruel to him as it is detrimental to the work. It can accomplish nothing 
useful. It is setting our best man to picking chips around the department 
workshops, which not only interferes with the workmen, but consumes 
the time and dissipates the energies that ought to be devoted to larger 
purposes. 

"Nor should these details be thrust upon him. I have seen taken to 
the president's office, over and over again, matters of such common routine 
and trivial detail that, should I permit those of equal consequence to come 



204 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

to the office of the director, I should be worn to the marrow, and if I 
should require them I should do infinite damage by blundering decisions 
rendered on partial knowledge of the facts, 

"I plead for a decent amount of leisure on the part of the president 
that he may work out presidents' problems. What are they? That is not 
my theme, but in order to protect my position here I will indicate some of 
them. The representation of the university before the public through 
addresses, and through the wider fields of activity that only the president 
can occupy. New lines of work, broader policies, a larger public service, 
and the thousand and one new things that do not occur to the men I 
have been talking about, and could not be performed by them if they 
did. . . . There is a service outward that can be rendered only by 
the president acting for the university as a whole. Besides this there is 
a service that is inward to the university that no department, no college, 
and no officer but the president can render. It is imperative that some 
great mind be free to work out from time to time new conceptions for 
the upbuilding of the university as conditions change, and that these 
energies be not wasted by the daily drain of distracting detail. . . . 
What cannot a single man in the right place do at certain junctures if he 
is big enough to know when the psychological moment has arrived? . . . 

"I place a plea for presidential leisure and a protest against a system 
that ties a president down to the business of daily directions. A well 
ordered university needs a president for other purposes than the details of 
daily operation." 

The center, and nearly the circumference, of the president's inde- 
pendent authority and power is his right, inherent in the nature of 
his responsibility, that only on the president's recommendation 
shall any one he elected by the board of re,2:ents to any university 
position. This is his indispensable function, — indispensable for 
the welfare of the institution. It can be properly discharged only 
in freedom, dignity, and security, — conditions which are conserved, 
not infringed, by orderly consultation with a faculty council and 
open report of concurrence or difference of opinion.* If the exclu- 
sive power of nominating all appointees is assured, no other 
unquestionable authority is needed or should be possessed for reg- 



■See page 133. 



CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 205 

ular purposes. For emergency the president must have authority 
to suspend any person or undertaking, pending the next session 
of the faculty or board of regents according to the jurisdiction for 
the matter in question. Of course^ he has independent authority 
over anything duly committed to his immediate charge, for in- 
stance a publicity bureau, and he may hold specially delegated 
authority in particular matters, as expressly commissioned by 
some ordinance of regents or faculty. In all other affairs the 
president should exercise influence by criticism, advice, and counsel, 
but should not issue commands. 

Another passage from Director Davenport's address may add some 
suggestions and side lights for readers who are not familiar with 
the inner sides of university life and work : 

"When a man of the rank and consequence of a head of a department 
approaches the office of his administrative superior in fear or in trepida- 
tion instead of anticipated pleasure at the prospect of an interesting con- 
ference — I say when this thing is so, then sometliing is wrong at the upper 
office, and something else is awfully wrong that makes such conditions 
possible. Yet so far as I am advised this is the inevitable consequence 
of the so-called 'strong administration,' except with the few individuals 
so conditioned as to be able to protect themselves or their interests, and 
except for the few who are administrative favorites. I ought not to tell 
tales out of school in this assemblage, yet the fact is notorious that no 
man is so exposed to flattery, no man so frequently cajoled by small souls, 
no man so thoroughly easy to 'work' as the autocrat at the head of what 
he i& pleased to believe a strong administration. Of absolute loyalty he 
knows next to nothing. 

"Some one will say, 'if nobody issues directions, how shall standards 
be set and established?' On this point let us remember that standards 
which live long are not born suddenly by edict; they develop out of 
exigencies and experience, and after a while they become traditional and 
then they are stronger than either law or edict. The advocates of doing 
things by administration do not seem to have remembered that influence, 
tradition, and the spirit of loyalty are infinitely stronger than authority. 
They seem not to realize that there is a form of organization with all 
the appearance of strength, but which breeds only weakness; strong and 



206 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

very busy at the center, but weak, even dead, out at the working points 
where it ought to be most alive. 

"The strongest organization is the one that is not always on dress 
parade, and does not always remind us that the big stick is close at hand. 
There is an organization that is scarcely evident except when occasion 
arises. . . . Such an organization possesses an inherent power, un- 
measured and unmeasurable. It will leap into instant service almost of 
itself and will not break in two at any point, however severe the strain. 
The power of such an organization is in its traditions, and the loyalty 
of its members, not in the authority of its head; nor does it depend 
altogether upon the personality of its members, for once started it seems 
to be endowed with the genius of immortality. 

"While many good men have been spoiled and their work ruined by too 
much direction, there is no case on record of securing the service of a 
genius out of a stick by the injection of any sort of administrative virus. 
Men grow and develop under responsibility, and they are at their best 
under a feeling that a great public trust devolves upon them. . . . 
Any man is a better man when feeling a personal sense of responsibility. 
If there is anything in a man this course will bring it out. Therefore 
give him every opportunity with a free hand and in good time he wil) 
demonstrate either his worth or his worthlessness." 

In many discussions of this question of presidential authority, 
the speakers often appear to misunderstand each other and them- 
selves from sheer vagueness as to the meaning of the word.* If 
they always kept in mind that ^^uthority" means a right to com- 
mand, many antagonisms would be avoided. Evidently the presi- 
dent cannot reasonably command the board of regents or the faculty 
to legislate in accordance with his opinions. Evidently he should 
never attempt to command a member of the faculty to do this or 
that, or thus and so. Every attempt to control authoritatively in 
the absence of legitimate authority, is an act of usurpation, incon- 
sistent alike with the enlightenment of a philosopher or the self- 
restraint of a gentleman or the prudence of experience. 



*Cf. page 92. 



ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 207 

Essential Fimctions 

The primary and essential functions of the president of an 
American university may now be stated concisely : 

(1) The executive agent of the board of regents, vested with 
the authority inherent in his duty to see that the laws enacted by 
the board are put into effect ; 

(2) The intimate expert adviser of the board, with the right, 
inherent in the responsibility of his presidency over the institu- 
tion, of selecting and nominating all appointees to university posi- 
tions ; 

(3) Leadership in, but not command of, the whole conduct and 
development of the institution. 

Given the right conception of these three functions, ordinary 
fidelity and good sense will suffice for fulfillinof the first ; but the 
second and third make such exalted demands unon attainments 
and character that one miffht well ask, "who is sufficient for these 
things?" Certainly no man could avoid mistakes and shortcom- 
ings altogether. President Alderman has said justlv: "A presi- 
dent can only avoid mistakes by cunningly doins: nothins". If an 
institution would escape the stagnation, therefore, of a do-nothing 
president (un president faineant) it mxust be willinsr to have 
patience with his errors.'^ For the second and third functions, 
a masterful knowledge of the nature and methods and scope of edu- 
cation, and a catholic comprehension of the proper relations of all 
branches of learning and scientific aims to each other and to indi- 
vidual life and to societ}^, constitute but a mere preparation which 
may be attained by any man endow^ed with philosophical powers 
of mind. There must be added wisdom and courage and imagina- 
tion and sympathy and patience sufficient to make timely use of 
that knowledge for practicable and judicious plans. Some knowl- 
edge of law and a deep feeling for orderliness and justice is an 
essential qualification of a safe counsellor in such intricate and 
far-reaching affairs : without it, no matter with what other knowl- 



208 ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 

edge and gifts, disastrous mistakes will follow one after the other. 
Force and clearness are needed to convince and persuade, else good 
advice may not be followed. Last and rarest of the needed qualifi- 
cations for rightly meeting the duties and opportunities of the 
second and third functions, is -unspoiled insight for knowing 
men. 

Perhaps more university presidents have ruined and been ruined 
because they were poor judges of men^ than for any other one 
cause. The insight that guides some men to almost unerring Judg- 
ments in this vital matter is, I believe, the natural reward of a 
candid and fearless life. Habitual feigning of approval or cor- 
diality, or the experience of fear of the face or power of mortal 
man or men, blears the vision whereby we see each other in true 
character, as the clouding of the optic lens balks physical eyesight, 
j^ative intellectual powers and social experience enhance the ability, 
but the essential faculty is as generic in mankind as the sense of 
smell; and if evanescent in a once normal person it has been 
diminished through his own counterfeiting or cowardice — com- 
monly begun in childhood. Social experience rather enhances the 
skill than increases the potential ability — as an eye may be trained 
to see more skillfully without causing any changfe in the oculist's 
measurement of visual power. Those who have enjoyed from 
earliest life social advantages of a high order seem to know almost 
immediately "who's who" in a new environment. This I suppose 
is simply because they know what is significant and whom to be- 
lieve, as they casually hear estimates of their new neighbors. Men 
as honest and perhaps better endowed but lacking that advantage 
flounder about without such side-lights, forming judgments as 
opportunities for direct observation slowly come. 

If I am permitted to relate an anecdote it may illustrate 
how a clear case of "poor judge of men,'^ in a university president, 
is a diagnostic symptom of hopeless incompetency for that office: 
A new and loquacious university president, after a full year's oppor- 



ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 209 

t unity for knowing the members of the faculty (spent by him in 
talking to instead of listening to them) remarked to several mem- 
bers that one of their colleagues might have certain merits but 
totally lacked weight and influence. That president was of the 

sort that never learns who's who. His opinion in this instance 
was such a far cry from the fact, that it was told on him as a joke. 
It had happened that one of the professors to whom he expressed 
the opinion, had only a few days before elaborated a ludicrously 
opposite judgment in toasting at a banquet the very man so blindly 
misunderstood by this president. After twitting his colleague as 
being ^^true as steel but just as hard headed," the said professor 
had gone on to say that the speaker would rather have anv other 
man he ever Imew "down on him'' than that hard headed individ- 
ual, because his judgments of men and things were so clear, so 
objective, so true and just, that every man who knew him seemed 
to adopt his estimates of other men without doubt or hesitation. If 
he damned a man the man was damned, without more ado, among 
his acquaintances. "And so," the speaker (a life-time friend of 
the object of his raillery) concluded, "I have ever walked circum- 
spectly lest I might ramble into the suburbs of his good pleasure, 
and, doubtless, with this fear of him before my eyes, I have some- 
times been kept in a straight and narrow way from which I might 
have wandered. And I have no doubt that many of you gentlemen 
have perambulated in these environs with a similar trepidation 
before our arbiter elegantiaram, and with a like wholesome effect.'^ 
The approving laughter from a score of colleagues that greeted 
this salJy proved that some truth had been spoken in the jest. The 
president referred to went on for a second year multiplying more 
serious errors, and the next year resigned. 

In all the manifold relations of a university president's duties 
and opportunities an intelligent, quick sympathy with persons and 
purposes is always a potent factor of success, but such tact, as it 
may be called, is nowhere and never so important as in the case 



^10 FACTORS OF SUCCESS 

of the advent of a new president. If a president in such a situa- 
tion does not rightly discern and appraise the peculiar spirit and 
traditions of the institution he has heen called to lead, his failure 
is foredoomed. A university that has a clear and potent tradi- 
tion possesses a rare and precious heritage. It is a thin^ to be 
appreciated and built upon, not obtusely ignored. I find, as^aiu, a 
striking illustration in President Alderman's call to be the first 
president of the University of Virginia. Here was an institution, 
where the old graduates recall not buildings, but men — ^instructors 
and student companions, all conceived and known as responsible 
individuals. A typical alumnus of that university, if he under- 
took to account for his culture, would call the names of old teach- 
ers and comrades, as did Marcus Aurelius ages ago, and above all 
would refer to the general spirit of individual responsibility and 
self-reliance that breathed in every relation of his college days. 
The afflatus of that spirit has not been numbed in him by sordid or 
c3rQical doctrines. It still lifts him above cowardice or self- 
seeking. All this was the result of the interplay of various forces, 
which would have been stubbornly and rightly arrayed against any 
new administrator too callous to perceive or too crude to appreciate 
such an inheritance. President Alderman was not found wanting. 
His first public address demonstrated his ability to understand the 
character of the University of Virginia. He stated it accurately 
and as discriminatingly as its oldest and most enlightened friend 
could have done : 

'^One does not have to search for this institutional character as 
for something elusive and subtle. It shines out before the face of 
the stranger in five clear points of light : 

"x\ sympathetic understanding of democracy as a working 
hypothesis of life, guaranteeing to every man a chance to realize 
the best that is in him. 

^'An absolute religious freedom, combined with wide and vital 
religious opportunities. 



FACTORS OF SUCCESS 211 

"An appeal to the best in young men, resulting in the creation 
of a student public opinion and a student system of honor, which 
endowed the university of the past, and endows the university of 
to-day with its richet asset of reputation and fame. 

"A high standard of scholarship rigidly maintained, in an air 
of freedom of learning and freedom of teaching, begetting an 
austere ideal of intellectual thoroughness and honesty. 

"A conception of culture as a compound of sound learning and 
gracious conduct, as an inheritance of manhood and moral will 
won through discipline and conquest, and as a capacity to deal with 
men in the rough work of the world with gentleness and simpli- 
city.^^ 

The new president pledged himself, also, to do what he could "to 
cherish and magnify, come good days or ill, this inspiring univer- 
sity character.^' Yet he bravely explained, "I do not mean that 
there should not be readjustment here — change, if you will — ^the 
growth that is conservative of life and that comes somehow out of 
the tissues of ancient strength. A changing society m,eans a chang- 
ing curriculum, and a university is society shaping itself to future 
ends. But there are things that are eternal, and the substance of 
this ancient spirit of the University of Virginia is one of them.'* 

Wisdom, imagination, and patience in its leader are very re- 
quisite if the complex organism of a university is to be inspired 
and guided for an ever enhancing service to science, to its students, 
and to the industrial, professional, political, and moral interests of 
the commonw'ealth. The piresident's responsibility for looking 
ahead into the future is a heavy one. No opportunist can he a 
good leader for a university. He must be alert to understand 
the true bearings of every proposal, and firm tO' resist proposed 
measures that would lead to evil consequences. Much misplaced 
zeal must be checked ; a vast deal of fallacious logic must be com- 
bated; and sometimes conceit must be punctured, and even greed 
restrained. Almost as much depends on preventing things from 



212 FACTORS OF SUCCESS 

being done in an injurious way and inhibiting totally mistaken 
enterprises, as on securing correct procedures for good ends and 
originating good policies. 

A factor of success as important as any otber, is the rare quality 
of natural, spontaneous, unrestrained courage — in which is included 
perfect candor when frankness is called for and reticence would 
be deceit. It was high praise of President James, of the University 
of Illinois, when a trustee of I^^orthwestem University, speaking of 
his presidency there, said of him: "He is of judicial mind, and 
though advocating some policy he would have the university adopt, 
he always pointed out its dangers as well as its advantages; he 
never misled. These qualities won for him our confidence." 
Whenever the members of a governing board begin to have doubts 
of the candor or balanced judgment or clear vision of their execu- 
tive and adviser, tbe end of his influence and usefulness in that 
institution is at hand. 'No responsible executive officer can accept 
too many votes of "lack of confidence,^^ and retain proper respect. 

The fundamental moralities and conditions of success as the 
executive officer of a governing board, are essentially the same for 
school superintendents and college presidents. The following para- 
graph from an address to school superintendents, made by me ten 
years ago, points out a rock on which many a college presidentjias 
met shipwreck: 

"If the executive officer of a governing board finds its members divided 
and mutually suspicious, lie should be especially careful to discuss every 
proposal before the full board and to avoid even the appearance of depend- 
ing on certain privately consulted members. I happened recently to read 
the following expression published by a school superintendent: 'Give me 
one strong, influential member on the average board to whom I can always 
feel free to go and talk on every question, and I will be the ultimate 
manager of that board.' Alas! brother, despite your good intentions, you 
will be an ultimate bone of contention between two factions of that board, 
if you pursue any such policy. Have your personal friends among the 
trustees, by all means; but talk with them in such intercourse on other 



PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION- 213 

subjects rather than on those which will come before the board for official 
action. You are the officer of the entire body, not of one or two of its 
members. They and you meet at a counsel board, and it is best to have 
all dealings above that board. If the arguments you advance^ in support 
of your recommendation fail to commend it, do not canvass for votes; 
seek better arguments, or possibly a better recommendation. If that policy 
does not sooner or later succeed — resign; and you will advance in your 
profession far more than if, by your practices, the board had been split 
into a set majority for you and a minority set against you, and you had 
kept the place until the tables turned. Nothing would so effectively 
increase the respect, the influence, and the salaries of school superintend- 
ents, as occasional resignations because too many official recommendations 
had been disregarded. No responsible executive officer can accept too 
many votes of 'lack of confidence,' and retain proper respect. At present 
boards of trustees generally imagine that school superintendents and col- 
lege presidents resign only to get better salaries or when asked to do so. 
This is a generalization that assumes its exceptions; but all suffer from 
the fact that the generalization could be made at all. We ought to exer- 
cise proper self-restraint, but we ought not to forfeit self-respect; and 
we ought to hold ourselves responsible: — "Tis not in mortals to command 
success ; we will do more — deserve it.' " 

The Problem of Elimination 

The president's function of selecting and nominating all ap- 
pointees to university positions has been stated, and what seems 
to me the only proper and feasible restraint and safeguard in the 
exercise of that responsibility has been explained and recom- 
mended.* It remains to consider a special phase of that function 
which always and everj^here presents peculiar difficulties. It was 
tacitly postponed, at the previous connection, for separate treat- 
ment ; because, although I have pushed a parenthetical and digres- 
sive style to its limits (in an endeavor to give every segment of dis- 
cussion such precision and adequacy that it might bear study and 
carry force if studied), it was not practicable to include in the 
first general statement this particular phase of the question. 

*See page 204 and page 133; cf. pp. 125-135. 



214 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 

In American colleges and universities there is no automatic way 
of getting rid of or side-tracking members of the facnlty who, 
whether by fault or shortcoming, have proved unsnitable and un- 
successful. In German universities there is an automatic check 
on the regular professors in the work of the private docents. A 
professor who there grew neglectful or proved incompetent would 
have at his side an able young colleague, lecturing on the same 
subject^ to whom the students would be sure to resort if he showed 
weakness, or if his work deteriorated. But our teachers are paid 
independently of their students^ discrimination. Under such pro- 
tected conditions, an elimination of the unfitted and the failing by 
some responsible authority is a necessity. The faculty cannot do 
this directly; men and work should be intelligently weighed, not 
voted on. The regents cannot do it directly. There is nobody but 
the president who could do it. He must do it — at his peril. Mitiga- 
tion of that peril depends on the justice and wisdom of his recom- 
mendations for terminating appointments, and almost equally on 
the manner in which the duty is performed. The latter point 
will be considered after presenting somewhat further the conditions 
in question. 

Commissioner Draper, an advocate of practically unrestricted 
power in the president of a university, states the matter forcibly, 
and correctly as far as his statem^ent goes, but he fails to provide 
or to see the need of the safeguard that seems to me to be essential. 
Speaking of the necessity of "getting rid of teachers who do not 
teach or of investigators who do not produce," he says : 

"Some competent and protected authority must accomplish this and 
continually reinforce the teaching staff with virile men. The competition 
between institutions rather than between men, and the natural reluctance 
at deposing a teacher, are producing pathetic situations at different points 
in many American universities, and are likely to become the occasion of 
more weakness in our university system than has been widely real- 
ized. . . . 
"The very life of the institution depends upon eliminating weak and 



PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 215 

unproductive teachers and reinforcing the teaching body with the very 
best [obtainable]. No board ever got rid of a teacher or an investigator — 
no matter how weak or absurd — except for immorality known to the board 
and likely to become known to the public. The reason why a board 
cannot deal with such a matter is the lack of individual confidence about 
what to do, and of individual responsibility for doing either something 
or nothing. But, with three or four hundred in the faculty, the need of 
attention to this vital matter is always present and urgent. No board 
knows where new men of first quality are to be found; no board can 
conduct the negotiations for them or fit them into an harmonious and 
effective whole. The man who is fitted for this great burden and who 
puts his conscience up against his responsibility can hardly be expected 
to tolerate the opposition of an unsubstantial sentiment which would 
protect a teacher at all hazards, or the more subtle combination of selfish 
influences which put-s personal over and above public interests when the 
upbuilding of a university is the task in hand." 

President Pritchett in Ms Annual Report for 1909 presents a 
more careful^ inductive statement: 

"Both boards of trustees and executive officers of colleges find them- 
selves constantly called upon to deal with men who are clearly unequal 
to their tasks, and whose further continuance in position is at the expense 
of scholarship and of the student body. 

"This is the old question of all university administration. How can 
academic security and freedom be coupled with a fair scrutiny of the 
efficiency of the men who are concerned? The question is a little different 
from what it is in England and in Germany because of our different edu- 
cational organization in institutions of higher learning. Our institu- 
tional administration is a more centralized one; the president has larger 
powers and is more directly responsible for the efficiency and well-being 
of the whole institution than is the case of any one officer in a European 
university. These considerations suggest that our organization will be 
subjected to a somewhat closer scrutiny than it has hitherto had, — a 
scrutiny dealing with both academic freedom and scholarly efficiency. 

"Out of the mass of facts which have been referred to in this report, 
the following underlying principles seem to emerge as the basis upon which 
the study of the American university must proceed. 



216 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 

"First, while the American university president will have larger powers 
than the chief officer of foreign universities, these powers will go hand 
in hand with the independence and security alike of presidnet and pro- 
fessor. In order that this may be accomplished, the appointment and the 
dismissal of teachers must rest on some wider action than the recommenda- 
tion of a single individual. 

"Second, in the interest of efficiency and of the whole cause of educa- 
tion, the individual who looks toward the career of the college professor 
must go through a probationary term, in which his appointment shall be 
for a limited time. This practice is already in operation ^n many col- 
leges and universities, assistant professors being appointed usually for a 
period of three or five years, this period being looked upon as a proba- 
tionary period during which the man's fitness must be proved before he 
is taken into a secured position. 

"Third, the college professor must in the future submit more directly 
than in the past to some scrutiny of his work and of his results, as well 
as to some examination of the extent of his co-operation with other men 
in the institution. . . . The development of effective responsibility 
within the college itself is alike in the interest of the professor and of 
the cause of education, and to this development the American teacher him- 
self should lend his best effort." 

It is, indeed, evident that "some wider action than the recom- 
mendation of a single individuaP^ is needed. Justice and decorum 
require this, and it is needed as a safeguard for the president. But 
I believe it would be sufficient to follow the procedure already pro- 
posed for the proper adjustment of formal relations between presi- 
dent and faculty, in the second part of the plan for the faculty's 
participation in government, explained in pages 125 to 135. I 
would merely add that one distinction ought to be recognized be- 
tween a new selection for appointment to a position in the faculty^ 
and the dropping or dismissal of a member. In the former case 
in the rare instances in which the council might dissent from the 
president, the board of regents must, on principle, uphold the 
president. ISTo personal injustice could thus be done, and presi- 
dent's responsibility entitles him to control the selections of new ^d- 



PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 217 

ditions to the faculty. In the latter case, I believe the board should 
not be formally bound to adopt the president's opinion, if the coun- 
cil reported dissent, but should weigh the reasons to the contrary 
presented by the council. Generally the president's counsel would 
and probably should be followed, but the principle that ought to 
control is different. As in the case of a new nomination the presi- 
dent's selection, duly explained in council, would generally be ap- 
proved, or his own opinion be changed by helpful discussion ; so an 
opinion on his part that some one ought no longer be retained would 
generally be Justified to the council, or corrected in his own judg- 
ment, and no dissent would occur. In either case, it is far better that 
the counciFs rarely occurring difference should be known in an open 
and orderly way, than that acts that take the faculty by surprise 
should be murmured against. If the faculty knew that all nomina- 
tions for advancement and for filling vacancies and all recommen- 
dations for elimination had been explained to a council chosen by 
themselves, they would feel that the president's opinions had been 
justified before their own representatives. This simple procedure 
would rescue the president of the American university from the 
position and attitude of an alienated commander, and would open 
to him the place of a trusted leader. 

The second of the "underlying principles," stated by President 
Pritchett as the basis upon which the elimination of the unfit must 
be secured, need not be discussed in this connection. It is already 
generally recognized, will scarcely be disputed by any one, and will 
be considered in the next chapter from a more general stand- 
point. 

It only remains to form just ideas of the "scrutiny" of work and 
results and cooperation with others, that must somehow precede the 
conclusions upon which elimination is to be based. On this point 
the talk of the petty-minded and of those who lack intimate knowl- 
edge, and the spirit of the martinet are likely to work havoc. Any 
notion of an inspector of class-room work, or of time-card records 



218 PROBLEM OF ELIMIXATION 

in the business office^ is absurd in its futilit}^ and utter inapplica- 
bilit}" to the real thing. How, then, is the requisite scrutiny 
to take place, and the needed criticism to be made? Here is no 
mystery to those who understand — ^who know the work and the 
life; but it may puzzle even an intelligent man if he has no famil- 
iarity with such affairs and has never thought closely upon the 
subject. 

In the first place, it must be understood that no such simple 
scrutiny and estimates as are made of the results or output of the 
workers in a shoe factory would be possible. In the second place, 
the uninitiated must believe that estimates, as just and correct as 
need be for eliminating purposes, are not difficult for a competent 
president to make. The most just and expedient selections for 
advancement are more difficult. For neither purpose does the pres- 
ident need to go about class-rooms on tours of formal inspection. 
It may be remarked in this connection , however, that it 
a serious indictment against the manner and matter of 
the instruction commonly given to university students by 
American professors, that neither the president nor their 
colleagues are naturally attracted to attend any of the reg- 
ular lectures they deliver. That which is a matter of course 
in Europe, as it ought to be among intellectual men anywhere, is 
a rare exception in our universities, N"othing points more signi- 
ficantly to the miserable consequences of treating 5"0ung men as if 
they were children and of leveling ever}H:hing to a supposed capac- 
ity of the weak and the supposed benefit of the ^'^greatest num- 
ber.^^ 

If a president attempts to control the details of all work in 
the institution, he will do all of that badly, and will lack time for 
his proper functions: but if the institution is well organized for 
administrative purposes a competent president may easily form 
just estimates of every member of the faculty in ways far more 
reliable than the crass method of a supervising inspector. The 



PROBLEM OF ELIMIXATION 219 

task is not so heavy as the large number of individuals concerned 
might suggest. In many cases diligence and high quality of service 
would be evident, in many others it would be evident that there 
was no occasion to consider the question of elimination. The 
doubtful and suspicious cases would not be numerous. Each 
should be looked into sufficiently to reach a clear opinion. In the 
case of a young member holding a temporary appointment on trial, 
the counsel of the chief men of the department would generally be 
sufficient, if corroborated by the president's personal impressions in 
the light of known facts. If a president is a poor judge of men 
and scholars, he is not qualified to meet the most primary and 
essential duty of his office, and mistakes of omission and commis- 
sion will accumulate inevitably. 

Always the president ought to know personally the instructor 
whose elimination he recommends. And when he has reached 
his decision, he ought to inform the person most interested of his 
intention, telling at least some of his reasons. This is not a 
pleasant duty, but it is a plain one. The person to be eliminated 
is entitled to know that his services are not desired for the follow- 
ing year, in time to seek another position — to mention only one 
very practical basis of his rights in the premises. In my judgment 
even a coward fortified by a proper love of justice would not fail 
in this plain dut}^ I need not, therefore, make more explicit my 
opinion of the personal character of the university presidents who 
permit members of the faculty to find out from the public press, 
or through some leakage, in June after the adjournment of the 
board of regents, that they have been eliminated from the service 
of the institution. That such conduct is not unusual is not only 
an offense to decency and a disgrace to our civilization, but it means 
a corrupting atmosphere for the youth who are enticed into such 
colleges and universities. 

It is the wrong and cowardly manner of dismissal, not the mere 
fact, that causes bitterness and personal animosities, and has made 



220 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 

elimination the difficult and dreaded thing it appears to be to col- 
lege presidents and governing boards. A wrong method of reach- 
ing the decision causes it to seem unjust and despotic, and a timid 
secretive manner of performing the act arouses suspicions of 
various obliquities. On such conditions, many will disapprove and 
one will passionately resent. The open and decorous procedure I 
recommend would command general confidence; and, if the presi- 
dent be a magnanimous man, the timely interview with the in- 
structor to be dropped would often be the occasion of a personal 
reaction the very opposite of resentment. There is no analogy be- 
tween the relation of a member of the faculty to a college president, 
and that of a brakeman to a railroad superintendent ; but the follow- 
ing episode, told by a distinguished efficiency engineer, illustrates 
a trait in human nature that ought to be well known to every col- 
lege president (and school superintendent) from his own exper- 
ience : ^'^A railroad brakeman was put on the carpet by a superin- 
tendent. He came out from the ordeal and exclaimed : ^That is the 
whitest man who ever lived.^ ^Did he reinstate you?^ asked his 
companions. *^Eeinstate me ! No, he fired me; but he talked to me 
as if he were my father.^ '^ 

The elimination of a member of the faculty who has passed the 
proper probationary stages, for other cause than the infirmities 
of old age, ought to be, and is, an extraordinary occurrence in 
reputable institutions. Such cases arise from peculiar circum- 
stances, and are dealt with at least openly, whether wisely or mis- 
takenly. Some remarks upon this subject are offered in the fol- 
lowing chapter, in connection with a brief discussion of lehrfrei- 
heit. 

Some current public discussions seem to call for a few further 
observations on the subject of "scrutiny'^ for the purpose of elimi- 
nation. Perhaps the most morbid sjmiptom of conditions under 
which the enterprise of higher education labors in this country, 
appears in the manner in which some presidents speak of college 
and university professors. Ideas have been advanced and Ian- 



PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 221 

guage employed which may be more or less applicable to the teach- 
ers in a city's public schools (mostly women with only normal 
school training, or less), but are preposterous in reference to a 
university's work and faculty. If there were in particular institu- 
tions any justification of such ideas and language, the fact would 
be the most grievous of indictments against the presidents who 
created or tolerate the condition. As an example of the misconcep- 
tions alluded to, the young president of an aspiring college recently 
published his inductions from a visitation of "one hundred and five 
of the institutions listed in the reports of the United States Com- 
missioner of Education as colleges and universities." He infers 
from his observations that one of the essential obligations which 
American college presidents are expected to meet, is — "the presi- 
dent should supervise the teaching." He had explained: "The 
question what sJiould be expected of a college president I have not 
ventured to discuss. I have confined myself to conditions as I have 
found them in one hundred of our better institutions." But he 
appears to comment in his own part on the need of the presiden- 
tial presence and supervision in the class-rooms, and concludes, "Tt 
is reasonable to expect him to supervise the teaching until that 
duty is definitely assigned to another person." Before such mis- 
conceptions one stands aghast. Of course, the notion would be 
repudiated at the great majority of "our better institutions," — but 
th^t it could be expressed by a college president at all ! lehrfrei- 
Jieit, iempora, mores. Where are we, and whither are we 
tending, when a young president of pure purpose and many tal- 
ents, visiting the best hundred of our universities and colleges to 
improve his qualifications for the presidency of a new and aspiring 
college, learns that a university president in this country must 
"supervise the teaching" in order to fulfill his duty and meet what 
is expected of him, — at least until that duty is definitely assigned to 
another person? May we not assure the young man that no such 
burden rests upon him? I also entreat him not to assign "that 
duty" to "another person," and especially not to his deans. The 



222 ^^COLLEAGUESHIP'" WITH FACULTY 

young instructors will be sufficiently (perhaps too mucli) super- 
vised by their departmental colleagues ; the professors are past such 
supervision. And who of mortal men could supervise the teaching 
of a university faculty, even if it were desirable ? Men must stand 
on their own feet in a college or university — ^both teachers and 
taught, or lo ! no ^^igher education" will be found in the place. 

A very different, but perhaps more injurious, because less absurd, 
attitude is exposed in a casual remark by the president of the 
largest university in the United States of America : ^^Almost with- 
out exception the men who to-day occupy the most conspicuous 
positions in the United States have worked their way up, by their 
own ability, from very humble beginnings. The heads of the 
great universities were every one of them not long ago hum- 
ble and poorly compensated teachers." It must be inferred that 
President Butler here exposes his attitude toward the university 
professor; because, if he had had in mind experiences of early life, 
he would necessarily have said that the once humble teacher was 
now either a professor in a great university or its administrative 
head. In no other manner could such a remark be made in Ger- 
many or in England, or even in bureaucratic France. It cannot 
be well with us until great professors in an American university 
are esteemed as its distinguished men — of whom it would be im- 
possible to speak as ^^umble" in comparison with the president 
of the university. The presidential office is honorable and servicea- 
ble only as it serves to gather together strong men for the instruc- 
tion of the young and the advancement of knowledge. 

The Attitude of CoUeagueship With Faculty 

A point of subtle difficulty and danger, in both the spirit and 
the formalities of university organization, is involved in the atti- 
tude of colleagueship with the facult}^, which is everywhere imposed 
upon the president and at least passively assumed by him. Herein 
lies a cruel difficulty for him; because "no man can serve two mas- 
ters : for either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else 



''COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITH FACULTY 223 

he will hold to the one and despise the other." It would seem 
that a little clear thinking would prevent this confusion, but the 
security conferred by a logical organization truly adapted to the 
nature and ideals of each enterprise is only recently* coming to 
be understood and appreciated by a few leading minds — notably 
by some of the best efficiency engineers. 

The president of the American university is primarily and 
necessarily the executive officer and expert adviser of the board of 
regents. His other function of general leadership, as has been 
fully explained, demands comprehension of and sympathy with 
the work of the faculty; but his most immediate official loyalty 
belongs to the governing board. He cannot otherwise be that 
board's trusted adviser. 

The plan that has been proposed for participation by representa- 
tives of the faculty in the counsels of the governing board, and for 
the president's consultation with representative councils, would 
remove the fatal fault of organization by which the president has 
hitherto undertaken to be the exclusive representative of the faculty 
to the board, and at the same time the independent adviser of the 
board. Those functions are contradictory; no man can always be 
faithful in both. Hence the universal accusations of bad faith- — 
necessarily more or less justified under an impossible theory of the 
president's functions and obligations. But there might still re- 
main, after such correction of fundamental procedures as has been 
recommended, the question we are now considering. It would, 
indeed, be an illogical survival from previous habits of thought; 
but it is exceedingly difficult to do away with fixed ideas, or to put 
an end to an habitual employment of misused words — those "unjust 
stewards of men's ideas." 

If it be admitted that the proper functions of the university 



*The importance of logical relations in the agencies for the government 
of states was insisted upon by men like Montesquieu and Alexander Ham- 
ilton; but such principles have been ignored or despised among us, even 
in that sphere, for more than a century. 



224 ''COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITH FACULTY 

president have been correctly stated on page 207 of this stndy, it 

should follow that the inconsistent and deceptive attitude of col- 
leagueship with the members of the faculty ought to be carefully 
avoided. Judges should be selected from members of the bar for 
appointment on the bench, and judge and practitioner are of one 
legal profession; but the bench is not the bar, and a judge ceases 
to be in a specific sense a colleague of the attorneys who practice 
before him. Even so the governing board of a university should 
select for its executive officer and president of the institution one 
who knows the vital work and aims of a university in a professional 
way; but that officer, as such, is no more specifically a colleague 
of the members of the faculty than a regent is their colleague. 
I am, of course, aware that this is an unheard of contention ; but I 
submit it upon its rational appeal. The reader may judge for 
himself. 

I believe it would help every president immensely if he and the 
professoriate adopted clearly and followed with thoroughgoing con- 
■sistency the theory of the presidential office I have propounded. 
Intercourse would become natural, respective duties and responsi- 
bilities would be mutually recognized. Men could then differ in 
judgment about particulars without bitterness. The present anoma- 
lous attitudes pervert judgments and engender animosities. This 
is manifested in almost ever^^ discussion of the presidential office 
by university professors. Even so clear and candid a thinker as 
Professor Jastrow is tripped by the unconscious misconception. 
Speaking of the president's treatment of salaries in the budget, he 
complains: "The administrative feeling creeps in, or is openly 
defended, that so long as places can be filled, salaries are not the 
first consideration. It is this phase of the presidential activity 
that estranges him from colleagueship with his faculty." This 
remark, I say, is made by an experienced and distinguished profes- 
sor, and not casually, but in a careful critical discussion of marked 
ability. It illustrates how the misconception of colleagueship with 
the faculty adds the sting of betrayal to difference of opinion. 



''COLLEAGUEST-IIP'' WITH FACULTY 225 

Under proper conceptions it would be impossible to say that, the 
administrative feeling creeps in on the chief administrator^ or that 
the loyalties of coUeagueship with the faculty were betrayed by the 
president, — nor would the faculty, it may be added, ever be spoken 
of as his faculty. These are not matters of rhetorical precision; 
the misconceptions and deep connotations of such expressions cause, 
as Francis Bacon long ago explained, "a predisposition of the mind 
which distorts and infects all the anticipations of the understand- 
ing/^ The administrative standpoint is properly taken by the 
president. Adequate and rightly distributed salaries are not prop- 
erly matters of sentiment, but of wise administration. If, for 
instance, a president commits the error of advocating salaries for 
new and obscure incumbents in chairs created mainly f'^r advertis- 
ing purposes, exceeding those of distinguised scholars, who, in 
their more ordinary chairs, give the institution its real standing 
and prestige, — that is, indeed, a grievous mistake. But it would be 
far more effectively met on its true and proper ground. It is an 
administrative mistake. It can be proved to be such an error. To 
drag in passions, involved with notions about treason to colleagues, 
when there is no real coUeagueship, only makes confusion worse 
confounded, and renders mutual understanding practically im- 
possible. 

Every university president would do well to cease from vain 
attempts to pose as a member of the faculty. The present mis- 
taken theory demands an acrobatic feat that cannot be performed 
successfully. The president may properly, at his pleasure, preside 
over a meeting of the faculty; but it should be done as president 
of the university, not as chairman of the faculty, — just as he may 
preside over an}^ convocation in the university. But he should 
often attend faculty meetings when he does not preside. The 
president, for many reasons,* should attend as many of the meet- 
ings of every faculty as he can. He may thus, for instance, give 



*See page 235. 



23G "'COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITPI FACULTY 

each faculty the benefit of the experience of all the others. But 
there is no need for him to be the chairman of every faculty, in 
order to render this or any other service. The chairman of the 
faculty should be its own dean elected by the faculty. The faculty 
might very properl}^, on some occasion, wish to meet without the 
president's presence, — not as a surreptitious conclave, but in the 
full formality of its corporate dignity. 

I believe the more such an organization and accordant attitudes 
are considered, the more reasonable and advantageous they will ap- 
pear. The president's infl.uence would be enhanced, not dimin- 
ished. Faculty meetings would be voluntarily much better at- 
tended. The proposals and counsels that the president often 
desires and needs to submit to the faculty, would be heard by its 
best and strongest members, who now so frequently absent them- 
selves. Good and strong men abominate shams. Such men have 
come to loathe the travesty of the so-called "faculty meetings'' of 
the prevalent practice. If faculty meetings are conducted by the 
president, all appointments, rulings, and initiative tend to fall upon 
him, even if they are not rashly assumed by him. Young mem- 
bers of the faculty whose breeding and innate character do not 
keep them immune from a base contagion, fall into sycophancy, or 
into a legislative precipitancy and insolence that renders them 
and their influence upon students a menace to society. Genuine 
deliberation tends to vanish. Protests, hopelessly made by wiser 
heads from a sense of personal integrity and to wash their hands 
of the matter, are flippantly disregarded by an always safe majority 
eager to follow the chairman's suggestions. A president may 
begin with a sincere desire that his opinions should gain weight 
from their wisdom rather than from their source; but the destruc- 
tive tendency inheres in the system. The characteristic results 
will be manifested in the long run, — quicklv in a young institution 
destitute of resistant traditions. 

The "drift within the university" consequent upon faculty meet- 
ings of the prevalent sort, is pointed out by almost every observer. 



''COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITH FACULTY 227 

It often carries things bej^ond any original purpose of the unwit- 
ting presidential instigator. Compliant claqueures tend to out- 
Herod their Herod. Professor Jastrow observes : 

"The drift within the university is toward winning those marks of suc- 
cess upon which administrative dominance sets greatest store. . . . 
The same spirit is felt throughout every detail of university life, from 
athletics up or down as our standards may be. It tempts the professor 
to spend his energies in securing large classes; it sets departments to 
devising means to outrank in numbers the devotees of other departments > 
it makes the student feel that he is conferring a favor upon the university 
by coming, and then upon the professor by choosing his classes; it leads 
the administration to value the professor's service by his talents in these 
directions, to appraise executive work, at least financially, far more highly 
than professional service; and, worst of all, it contaminates the academic 
atmosphere so that all life and inspiration go out of it, or would, if the 
professor's ideals did not serve as a protecting aegis to resist, often with 
much personal sacrifice, these untoward influences." 

There is one point upon which I should be careful to avoid pos- 
sible misunderstanding. If the president is not a member of the 
faculty, someone may wonder: What channel is left open to him 
for actively expressing the allegiance he still owes to teaching and 
to science — his original professional obligation? If in any rare 
instance a university president wished to offer throughout a term 
a course of instruction in the reg^ular curriculum, there would be 
no difficulty in arranging for him to be, quo ad hoc, a member 
of the faculty, entirely aside from his presidential office. But the 
teaching obligation seems to be more honored in the breach than 
in the observance by the presidents of our universities. No one 
could more deplore the preoccupation, or neglect, or inabilit}^, thus 
implied, than do I; nor does any advice of mine militate against 
the resuscitation of the impulse that ought to prompt and compel 
university presidents to meet the students and faculty, on convenient 
occasions, as a lover of learning and the communication thereof, 
and, if possible, as a creator of new knowledge and announcer 
thereof. In general, it is only an irregular lecture or course of 



228 ''COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITH FACULTY 

kctares that should be expected in the university from its presi- 
dent. Against this an objection seems to arise from a petty notion 
that the university student should and must receive "credit^^ in 
marks in the registrar's office for everything he listens to. There 
are victims of the marking mania who imagine that irregular 
scholarly lectures b}^ members of the faculty or by the president 
are practically barred on this account. "How could the student 
get credits ?'' The question deserves only such an answer as that 
of the captain of i^apoleon's Old Guard when asked whether he 
was ready to surrender. Let the president lecture to who will come 
to hear, as he may be able. He will be better able to do some 
scholarly work once in a while, if he will put far from him the 
fantasy that everybody and everything always needs to be directed 
and managed and controlled by the president. Eor Ihe sake 
of manhood, to say nothing of science, let there be one point iu 
American university life where credits in the registrar's office may 
be forgotten. Let the president lecture when he has something 
worth saying for the instruction of the young, or for the advance- 
ment of knowledge. Let his lectures, at least, be one oasis in which 
grade marks are ignored. I know young men and their hearts. 
T know too that they have no worse traducers than a certain sort 
of university instructor. If a com.petent president would adopt 
the course I suggest, it would afford a salutary object lesson to 
many members of the faculty. They would see lectures attended 
regardless of credits.* The fact might open their understand- 
ings. 



*I knew of a young instructor, twelve years ago. in the department of 
philosophy of a great university, whose regular lectures were frequently 
attended hy members of the faculties of other departments, and whose 
audiences usually included a large number of students who were not 
enrolled for the courses and received no "credit" for their attendance. 

It is reported that the biggest amphitheatre possessed by the College 
de France is too small to hold Henri Bergson's would-be hearers: "Long 
before the lecture hour the seats and the steps of the aisles, which can be 
made to serve as seats, are pre-empted by patient waiters. . . . The 
standing room fills up rapidly also. . . . When the lecture begins, the 
sitters, and such of the standers as are lucky enough to have their arms 



''COLLEAGUESHIP'' WITH FACULTY 229 

The advisino: and control of students belongs fimetionally to the 
faculties and their deans, nevertheless it behooves the president to 
keep in vital touch with the students. There need be no S3'stematic 
method in this relation, and the intercourse that should sustain 
it had better not be too common. From time to time the president 
ought to have something which he wishes to say to the student 
body, and if he is of the right stuff: for his calling, he will know 
how to make such irreg-ular occasions natural and effective chan- 
nels for the personal influence with the young that should be an 
abiding desire of his heart. If a college president does not under- 
stand 3^oung men, he does not understand the business he is set to 
administer. Of one thing, at least, he may be sure : whether he 
understands them or not, they will understand him. President 
Benton, in his book Tlie Real College, Justly observes : 

"These keen young minds will read him through and through. To others 
he may make himself opaque. To his students he is always thoroughly 
transparent. . . . There is no stronger disciple of the gospel of the 
'square deal' than the young collegian. A president will never control 
him hy abuse. He will not win him by oppression. College students hold 
tyranny and play to the galleries in equal contempt. They like an expres- 
sion of confidence and appreciation when it is merited. They will accept 
deserved rebuke properly administered. They despise unmerited com- 
mendation. They honor perfect frankness. The alert mind of youth is 
quick to distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit. A college 
president can afford to be an artisan in raising money. He can afford to 
be nothing less than an artist in shaping immortal men." 



free, scribble furiously in their note-books. . . . The lecturer is short 
of stature, spare, an almost perfect ascetic type, somewhat gray, and 
slightly bald. ... He speaks slowly and distinctly, but easily, with 
engaging indifference to his notes, and without any effort at oratory. 
. . . It is as though sheer intellect, abstract intellect, were endowed 
with the power of speech. There is not the slightest trace in M. Bergson's 
manner of vanity, . . . nor is there a scrap of the imlovely pedantry 
and arid officialism, against the prevalence of which at the Sorhonne a 
considerable portion of cultivated France recently rose in revolt," 



230 SECOND AKY ADMINISTRATORS 

Secondary Administrators 

The entire discussion throughout this and preceding chapters 
has upheld the general principles of what is termed functional 
organization, and its appropriate general policy of non-interference 
with inherent responsibility and properly commensurate authority. 
The logical place and status of a business manager and his staff, 
and of the registrar's office have been made clear. The proper 
nature of the office of the deans of the faculties has been indicated 
or implied at various points, but that important matter and the 
inner organization of departments will be treated more directly 
in the next chapter. There remain to be considered only those 
administrative officers who are merely direct assistants to the presi- 
dent. Secondary administrators of this kind exist, or ought to 
exist, only in institutions in which the separate location of dif- 
ferent parts, or the magnitude of some definite division, or the 
amount and character of the president's personal engagements, re- 
quires such presidential lieutenants, or, in the last case, an assist- 
ant president. No such function ought ever to be confused with 
the deanship of a. faculty. If officers of the sort in question are 
required they should have titles that avoid confusion with positions 
properly belonging to the jurisdiction of faculties or departments. 
Usually they may be called directors. In the last case mentioned, 
however, if a president for some good reason needs an immediate 
general assistant, that officer should be called Assistant President.* 



*0n May 19, 1913, President David Starr Jordan of Leland Stanford 
Junior University, desiring to devote himself mainly to the university's 
external relations, was largely relieved of the cares of internal adminis- 
tration. Dr. J. C. Branner, who for fifteen years has been assistant or 
vice-president, was made president, and Dr. Jordan was made Chancellor 
of the University. Shortly afterwards Dr. J. M. Stillman, head of the 
department of chemistry, was made vice-president. Such an arrangement 
is, of course, exceptional, and was adopted to meet special conditions. It 
could be properly judged only after close examination of those conditions 
and the actual functions and relations of the officials. Certainly no such 
administrative triumvirate would be generally advisable. 



SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS 231 

Confusion of properly distinct functions and spheres of authority 
almost always accompanies an official misnomer. Even if the 
original misconception that led to the adoption of an illogical title 
be no longer shared by present administrators, the retention of 
the misleading title will continue to cause more or less disorganiz- 
ing confusion. So many members of governing boards and facul- 
ties understand so little of organization and government, that their 
conduct and attitudes are unconsciously directed or affected by 
the legitimate purport of a title. It is therefore eminently worth 
while to make every title employed in the institution fit the scheme 
of actual organization. 

There are some divisions of a large university which have such 
manifold external relations, that for them special directors may be 
permanently needed and, perhaps, increasingly advantageous. For 
instance, some extension divisions, or the experiment stations of a 
great college of agriculture, will usually require special administra- 
tive services that the president cannot or is not in a position to 
render. Well organized faculties can best manage the work of 
instruction and research, but the ideal for the services of institu- 
tions of higher education has expanded to include the public dis- 
semination of the results of science for practical application. This 
new sphere of service — ^getting the knowledge applied which has 
been achieved, and is stored, as it were, in repositories of learning 
— is one in which administrative direction is peculiarly necessary. 
And the administrative direction needed in this sphere is of a kind 
that a faculty could hardly give. For example, the various de- 
partments of any strong school of agriculture know more today 
than the farmers of the country could be led in a century to apply 
or utilize, unless skillful and persistent and systematic methods of 
dissemination are employed. Highly developed and vigorous de- 
partments of prophylactic medicine and public hygiene would be 
similarly situated. 

On the other hand, proper organization would enable the presi- 



xJo^ SECONDARY ADMIN"ISTRATOES 

dent to fulfill all general administrative duties without assistance, 
and leave him far more time for his essential and useful functions 
than the common type of organization leaves him with numerous 
lieutenants. Ordinary schools and coUegeS; even if very large and 
^separately located, cause no inherent need of directors or assistant 
presidents. I believe President Schurman is correct in his opin- 
ion : "Probably the office of director will be abolished* as the col- 
leges having such heads become firmly established and democrati- 
cally organized. . . . But the dean as executive assent of the fac- 
ulty is indispensable.^' 

The matter of college athletics, as it has been developed in the 
majority of ambitious colleges, presents anomalies that make it 
somewhat difficult to place in respect to suitable jurisdiction. To 
one unacquainted with the conditions it would seem plain that the 
control of student athletics belonged to the faculty, and that there- 
fore a Director of Athletics should look immediately to the Dean 
of the Faculty for the fundamental regulations governing the 
afi'airs over which the Director is commissioned to exercise executive 
control. If this works well, it is the natural status of a director 
of athletics. It may be remarked, however, that if the external, 
public connections of some conspicuous phases of the matter be 
such that a president is convinced that they need to be under his 
own hand, he should be careful to avoid any confusing interfer- 
ence. The condition supposed involves doubtless an exaggerated 
employment of so-called "games'^ for the amusement of the public 
and spectacular advertising. Perhaps the wiser course would be to 
let truer games be a matter of athletic sport for a much larger 



^Cornell University has had hitherto nine directors of different colleges, 
schools, or divisions. Some of them, by reason of the complexity or ex- 
tensive external relations of their divisions will probably continue to be 
needed. But future experience will doubtless find the offices of Director of 
the College of Law, Director of the College of Architecture, Director of the 
School of Education, for instance, to be inexpedient. On the other hand, a 
Director of the College of Agriculture, and a Director of the Summer Ses- 
sion, may be permanently required. 



SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS 233 

number of the young men, with less frequent traveling exhibitions. 
^Nevertheless if the supposed condition exists, and the conduct of the 
matter involves such complicated external relations and the ex- 
penditure of such great sums of money, that the president desires 
to control it, it might be best to have a Director of Public Athletics 
looking to the president for general guidance and control, and a 
Gymnasium Director (or other appropriate title) looking to the 
faculty's executive officer. 

I offer, as a concluding suggestion, that the office and proper 
functions of the president of a college or university are such that 
there is no need for any "acting president," when the president 
happens to be absent from his desk for a few days. E'othing ex- 
poses more crudely an arbitrary one-man rule, than the appoint- 
ment — automatic or special — of an ^'^acting president," whenever 
the president takes a train to attend a distant meeting or to spend 
a vacation week. When the head of an executive department of 
the state government steps out of his office, the public business may 
require an "Acting Secretar}^ of State," for instance, to fall auto- 
matically into the chiefs place; but the president of a university 
has no such business. A trip to Europe, or a resting retirement 
for several months, is a different m^atter, and an acting president 
may be specially appointed. For ordinary brief absences, there 
is no need of an acting president. The organization of the institu- 
tion must be totally bad, if it cannot run a few days without the 
president at his desk. 



y. THE FACULTY. 

The administration of curricula, which is the faculty's main 
part within the subject of this studj^, will be considered in the next 
chapter. In previous chapters the organic relations and status of 
the faculty have been thoroughly discussed. Deanships and the 
management of departments have been collaterally involved at 
various points, but a more direct consideration of the office of the 
dean of a faculty, and of the internal organization of a department 
has been reserved for this chapter. Here, also, is the place for 
brief references to some of the ideals that should be preserved and 
enforced by the faculties of colleges and universities. 

It has been shown that a college must be built upon a group of 
professorships. It can grow from no other nucleus. The faculty 
is the comparatively continuous body among all the component 
parts of the institution. Solidarity and continuity in the student 
body is also a very vital fact, nevertheless regents, presidents, and 
students may come and go without causing essential changes, if 
the nucleus keep its integrity. Its force and ideals must persist 
through the slower changes suffered by it, else chaos will come, — 
to stay until a new nucleus becomes steadfast again. Of course, 
by "steadfast" I do not mean fixed, nor have I in mind any sort of 
ultra conservatism, but refer to the characteristic quality of living 
principle and right understanding in any matter — it is not blown 
about by every puff of wind, it presses forward and changes its 
course only consciously and in order to improve. The vital 
importance of such continuity and steadfastness in a faculty, im- 
poses upon all its members a high duty which is too often neglected. 
The neglect of that duty is evidenced wherever it is distinctly dif- 
ficult for new members to become acquainted with colleagues, and 
where there is very little social and convivial intercourse in con- 
genial groups. For if the rational and ordinary means to an end 



THE FACULTY |235 

are neglected or unknown, the end will seldom be otherwise at- 
tained; or, if the natural manifestations of a spirit do not appear, 
the spirit is nsnally lacking. "Good fellowship," says President 
•Eliot in his book University Administration, "and a real intellec- 
tual intimacy among the teachers of a university are in them- 
selves great objects. They create a good atmosphere for the intel- 
lectual life of the whole body of teachers and students." He con- 
tinues: 

"That the members of a faculty understand each other's dispositions and 
various capacities is often a great advantage in university crises or emer- 
gencies; that the president and the deans should have the opportunities 
which faculty meetings supply to become acquainted with the powers and 
characters of the different members of the university staff is of primary 
importance. . . . 

"In faculty meetings the different qualities of the members who take 
part in the discussions are plainly revealed. The whole body learns that 
certain members are public-spirited, generous of time and labor, and 
co-operative, while other members exhibit the opposite qualities. Some 
members are seen to be clear, keen, and fair in debate, while others are 
obscure, dull, or unfair; some members are modest and retiring, and yet 
ready for service, while others are more forth-putting in talk, but not so 
serviceable; some are quick, ready, and fertile, while others are habitually 
slow to speak, and even tardy in debate, and yet sound and influential; 
some say little, but their opinions are weighty when expressed; others 
talk much and often, and nevertheless are influential because inventive 
and suggestive. ... A wise president will dread nothing so much as 
an inert and uninterested faculty." 

In spite of the life tenure of the professors in all universities of 
good repute, a faculty changes its constituent members more rap- 
idly than is generally supposed. The larger the proportion of 
assistant professors and instructors, the more rapid is the change.* 



*"It is not at all uncommon," says President Eliot, "for one-fifth of a 
faculty to disappear within five years. . . . There is no difficulty in 
keeping a faculty young on the average, in spite of the fact that long 
tenures and life-service are the rule in well-managed universities." 



236 THE FACULTY 

If its members pay no attention to the duties and find no enjo3anent 
in the pleasures of colleagueship, they will soon find themselves a 
disorganized group — each individual misunderstood and misunder- 
standing, suspicious and suspected. Under such conditions the 
faculty^s corporate action (in its atmosphere and methods, and in 
the accidental character of results unless ^'cut and dried^^ in advance 
by some clique) will resemble rather the proceedings of a political 
convention, than the deliberations of a permanent academic senate 
whose members should know each other in mutual sympathy and 
long habit of co-operative work and counsel, and who should be 
bound together by a common loyalty to their high calling. The 
Faculty is the very heart of the institution, and it must be a kingly 
heart, or all will be misruled. The government is on his shoul- 
ders. 

The members of faculties in which the president and the dean, 
and committees appointed by them, ^run' everything, will make 
a very wry face if more frequent faculty meetings be suggested. 
But that sinister attitude toward meetings of the faculty would 
soon disappear if such an organization as I have proposed were 
instituted. Under any conditions, however^ a faculty that is fit 
to meet at all ought to meet frequently. I am sure that President 
Eliot has rightly answered (in part) his question, "How can the 
functions of a faculty be best discharged ?" as follows : 

"In the first place, by frequent stated meetings for examining the condi- 
tion of its work, for hearing reports from its officers and committees, and 
tor the consideration and discussion of proposals to improve its methods. 
. . . Every faculty has to keep up with the rapid march of educational 
events, and for this purpose it must have frequent stated meetings, and 
patient discussion of new proposals. 

"This necessity for the constant revision of educational plans, methods, 
and material penetrates, or should penetrate, to the work of every indi- 
vidual teacher in the university. ... If they meet but seldom, leav- 
ing to dea,ns, secretaries, and committees all the routine work without 
demanding of them incessant improvements, receive from the members 



THE FACULTY 337 

few new proposals, and do their best to avoid discussion of those few, it 
is certain that the institution in their charge will not grow or thrive, 
and will soon cease to play a leading part in the educational progress 
of the community or the nation. By the vitality, inventiveness, and enter- 
prise of its faculty, it is safe to judge any institution of learning. Noth- 
ing can take the place of vitality in a faculty, no one-man power in a 
president or dean, no vigor and ambition in a board of trustees, and no 
affection or zeal in the graduates of the institution." 

The character of a faculty and its attitude toward all vital activi- 
ties in the university is the paramount qnestion. The importance 
of right organization lies in its bearing on this main question. 
The only safeguard against disasters and the one remedy for mis- 
takes and disorders of almost every sort^ is an intelligent recogni- 
tion of its responsibility on the part of a competent and resolute 
faculty. 

While carefully instituting a reorganization calculated to fortify 
a faculty in its proper functions, President Schurman reminded 
that organization cannot by itself secure the desired action, and 
that such action can be realized in spite of improper organization, 
if other conditions within voluntary control be favorable. Por- 
tions of his wise and expert counsel referring to the president's part 
have been given in the preceding chapter ; the following suggestions 
concern the faculty : 

"The end in view can be accomplished even without institutional reor- 
ganization. Let the faculty recommend what after due consideration it 
deems important for the university to do or not to do, and so far at any 
rate as Cornell University is concerned, not only the president but the 
board of trustees will be toO' thankful for the recommendations to think 
of raising any question of jurisdiction or prerogative. The welfare, the 
best interest, the advancement of Cornell University as an organ of higher 
education and research is the supreme object in every mind and heart, and 
the faculty should know better than any other body or than any individual 
how this end is to be attained. No greater good could come to Cornell 
University than a quickening and deepening of the faculty sense of 
responsibility for its welfare. Too often the faculties of American uni- 
versities have rolled all responsibility on the president and trustees. . . . 



238 THE DEANSHIP 

"The one remedy is cultivation by the faculty of a sense of responsibility 
for the welfare and advancement of the institution and a readiness to 
advise on all matters directly or indirectly connected with the essential 
functions of the university of which they are the constituted organs and 
guardians. . . . The report of the Faculty of the Graduate School pub- 
lished at the end of the year 1909-10 is an admirable example of faculty 
co-operation in determining fundamental policies for the university. By 
such action the faculty asserts itself, even under the present corporate 
organization of the university, as a potent element in its government. And 
the feeling that the university is their university, that they are influential 
in its control and that they themselves are free and independent in their 
several positions, enhances the happiness of professors and stimulates them 
to their largest and best endeavors as teachers and investigators. . . . 

"A faculty will not be dominated or over-ridden which justly asserts 
itself. Yet not only trustees but administrative officers are likely to 
remain; the positions are necessary or at any rate appropriate organs of 
the institution. Possibly the headship of the department may disappear, 
and a, committee consisting of all the members of the department take 
its place, as has now been done in several of the departments of Cornell 
University. Probably the oflB.ce of director will be abolished as the col- 
leges having such heads become firmly established and democratically 
organized, and the work of the head is less largely devoted to non- 
academic objects. But the dean as executive agent of the faculty is 
indispensable; and it will be due to the laches of the members of the 
faculty themselves if the dean ever exercises their powers. It is for them 
to keep the institution democratic. And nowhere else is democracy so 
important as in the university. For the professor's function is an intel- 
lectual one, and freedom is the law and life of the spirit." 

The Deanship 

If there were no weakness and no neglect on the part of mem- 
bers of the faculty, the sheer weight of its moral influence might 
protect the institution against functional usurpations by regents^ 
presidents, deans, or any other officials. But it would be unrea- 
sonable to hope for such perfection: the tendencies of wrong 
organization ought to be avoided with diligent care by correcting 
tJie organization. 



THE DEANSHIP 239 

The office of dean is comparatively new in American- universi- 
ties. Less than fifty years ago^ there was only one dean (of the 
medical faculty) in Harvard University. There are now nine or 
ten deans in that university. The dean of a faculty is everywhere 
the executive officer of his faculty. His primary function is to 
see to the execution of all the ordinances and regulations enacted 
by the faculty for the administration of its curriculum and the 
government of students. Yet almost everywhere the faculty's dean 
is nominated or appointed by the president, and the dean has 
ordinarily become a direct subordinate of the president. This 
secondary relation, this function of president's lieutenant, obscures 
the original obligation of the dean. He tends to become the presi- 
dent's man, not the faculty's representative. The most sincere 
individual strives in vain to fill acceptably such a two-faced office. 
It is bad for a faculty to suffer dictatorial interference from the 
president; it is utterly demoralizing if its own executive officer is 
seduced by the organization of tho^ institution into becoming an 
extraneous authority. As a practical issue, the undefined sway of 
deans exercising powers vaguely delegated"^ from the president, 
is lo the professoriate the most vexatious and discouraging feature 
of imiversity government in this country. 

Consultations between the deans and the president ought to be 
full, frank, and frequent; but each dean should be the executive 
officer of his faculty, and nothing else. And, as President Schur- 
man says, ''the time has come ivhen the right of the faculty to 
select its oivn chief officer should he recognized and confirmed/' 
And the authority of a faculty to remove its dean (however 
rarely to be exerted) ought to be recognized, — just as the govern- 
ing board has authority, if need be, to remove the president. 

The title of a dean should never run "Dean of the College of Arts 
and Sciences," "Dean of the School of Law," etc.; but the title 
should be "Dean of the Faculty of the College of Arts and 

*E. g., "Next in authority to the president come the several deans. 
. . . The duties of the Dean of the Faculty are in the absence of the 
president. to represent him in appropriate matters, . . ." — Catalog Uni- 
versity of Texasj 1911-12. 



240 THE DEAXSHIP 

Sciences/' "Dean of the Faculty of the School of Law/' etc. If 
one who knows the institutions will read their catalogs^ he will find 
some significant correspondences between organic facts and the 
practice in regard to these names. 

President Eliot, of course, advocates the appointment of deans 
by the president, nevertheless he warns : "A wise faculty will, how- 
ever, keep in its own hands a firm control over its officers and com- 
mittees, and will itself lay down all the general lines of educational 
policy.'' But it seems to me vain lo advise or to cherish hope for 
any such practice by a facult}^, if the president appoints all "its 
officers and committees"; they will be practically not its but his. 
If the primary means of control are usurped, is it reasonable to 
expect the faculty to "keep a firm control" ? I beg to direct atten- 
tion to a general incongruity between President Eliot's magnani- 
mous sentiments and the theories of organization he advocates. He 
holds that the president should be chairman of the governing board, 
and that, "in the board of trustees and in all the faculties the 
president should invariably name all committees, never allowing 
this important function to be usurped by any private member of 
these boards." Every feature and detail of organization he rec- 
ommends tends to establish a one-man power; yet he frequently 
expresses sentiments nobly contrary to such theories. He is un- 
doubtedly a benevolent despot, whose personal administration ob- 
viated the characteristic consequence? of the form of organization 
he administered. But faults in organization lie in wait like pit- 
falls, forcing the knowing into devious ways and ever ready to 
engulf the unwary. After asserting that the president of a 
university ought to have autocratic power, — ^by demanding every 
possible organic arrangement for conferring such power upon him, 
he, for instance, will presently continue : 

"The president of a tmiversity should never exercise an autocratic or 
one-man power. He should be often an inventing and animating force, 
and often a leader; but not a ruler or autocrat. His success will be due 
more to powers of exposition and persuasion combined with persistent 
industry, than to any force of will or habit of command. Indeed, one- 



ORGANIZATION VS. ADMINISTRATION 241 

man power is always objectionable in a university, w^hether lodged in 
president, secretary of the trustees, dean, or head of department." 

If the proper distinction between organization and administra- 
tion be kept in view, students of college and universit^^ manage- 
ment would be greatly assisted. Organization establishes the func- 
tional relations of all parts of the institution by fundamental ordi- 
nances ^'hich provide potentialities of action. Administration seeks 
to get out of each part the most beneficial exercise of its function. 
Organization deals with the abstract; it seeks permanent condi- 
tions; it cannot, or should not, consider persons or particular exi- 
gencies. Administration deals with the concrete; it puts a soul 
into the body. It would be profitless to argue which is the more 
important. In a short view covering only one man's life-time, 
administration appears to be the more important; for the soul it 
infuses makes so plainly for weal or for woe, — it may be prompt and 
vigorous, or faltering and weak; kind and wise, or selfish and 
blind; faithful and just, or false and unjust; in brief, the admin- 
istration within any organization may be sane or insane. But 
when one takes the long and comprehensive view, the life-time of 
any man or group of contemporary men is seen to be a small span 
in the life of the institution, and the tendencies produced by per- 
sistent organic conditions appear to be the more potent factor. It 
is somewhat like arguing about the relative importance of nurture 
and heredity. The debate, as such, is futile, — except as it might 
teach wherein and why each is important. Both are vitally im- 
portant; both deserve more thorough study than either has ever 
received. Organization, however, is much less regarded and much 
less understood than administration. A good heart and high 
moral ideals go far toward good administration ; analytical thought 
and good judgment in addition are required to provide good organi- 
zation. Contrary to the testimony of many, I have found in my 
experience of life a hundred good hearts to one good head. There 
is evil affection and perverse intention in this world, but far more 
faulty thought and weak will. The poet is right — 



242 THE DEAXSHIP 

"The poor inhabitant below 

Was quick to learn and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow, 

And softer flame; 
But thoughtless follies laid him low, 

And stained his name." 

I repeat, if the student of the literature of this subject can 
hold in mind the difference between organization and administra- 
tion, he will be able to take from any writer what is good on the 
one side, while rejecting what is bad on the other. For instance, 
in my opinion, almost everything President Eliot says about admin- 
istration is right, and almost everything involving organization 
advocated by him is wrong. Of course, I might be mistaken on 
either score, still the matters are totally distinct. From the fol- 
lowing passage in University Administration his opinions about a 
dean^s organic relation to the president are eliminated; the remain- 
der is an acute and helpful statement concerning a dean's admin- 
istrative duties and the "qualities of a good dean" : 

"At the head of each department [i. e., school or college] a dean is 
ordinarily placed, who is its chief administrative officer. In most cases 
he is also a professor and an active teacher, who gives part of his time 
to administrative work. . . . 

"The functions of a dean relate almost exclusively to his own depart- 
ment of the university; but within that department they are compre- 
hensive. . . . He is responsible for the preparation and orderly con- 
duct of its faculty business, and for the discipline of its students. In the 
undergraduate departments much of his time is given to intercourse with 
students who need advice or pecuniary aid, or who neglect their oppor- 
tunities, or become dangerous to their associates. For the younger pro- 
fessors and inexperienced teachers in his department, the dean is a coun- 
selor and friend. . . . 

"The dean of a large department requires a good deal of clerical assist- 
ance; because the records of the students under his charge must be kept 
with accuracy. The students' records kept in a dean's office are not only 
indispensable while the students are members of the university, but are 
also in many cases useful in after years; although the record of each 



SECRETARIES 243 

individual is held to be confidential, there are many proper uses to which 
they can be put by request of relatives, friends or biographers. . . . 

"Deans may best be persons who are capable of working cordially with 
the president, although their functions are in many respects independent 
of him. Much of the work of a dean is done in conformity with rules 
laid down by the faculty, or with well-understood, predetermined policies 
of the university, and it is only on matters for the settlement of which 
he finds no such guidance, or on new pecuniary problems, or on difiicult 
cases, that a dean will ordinarily consult the president. 

"It is obvious that for the discharge of these functions a dean needs 
good judgment, quick insight, patience, and a strong liking for helpful, 
sympathetic intercourse with young men. The men who are most suc- 
cessful in the work of a dean are neither dry nor gushing, neither rude 
nor soft; they are alert, attentive, sympathetic, and hopeful. In conduct- 
ing the business of his ofi&ee a dean needs the usual qualities of a good 
administrative officer, namely: thoroughness in inquiry, promptness and 
clearness in decision, and assiduity. In manner and address he ought to 
be frank, considerate, and cordial. He ought to inspire confidence and win 
regard, and be capable of exerting a good influence without visible effort, 
and without self-consciousness. 

"In a large department, containing many students, the work of a dean 
makes a serious demand upon a conscientious man whose feelings are 
quick; so that deans are often compelled to retire from service in conse- 
quence of the incessant drain on their sympathies, and the exhausting 
nature of parts of their work. One of the most trying parts is the inter- 
course with anxious, dissatisfied, or unintelligent parents. On the other 
hand, there is no part of university work which brings to the faithful 
worker a stronger sense of being useful, or more durable satisfactions. 
His personal contacts with young men are numerous and intimate. He 
often knows that he has done good to people in anxiety or trouble, and 
as the years go by he experiences many of the legitimate rewards of 
bringing help at critical moments in other people's lives." 

Faculty Secretaries 

Tile following admirable statement by President Eliot expresses 
all that need be said about the recording secretary of a faculty : 
"The function of the secretary of a faculty is by no means "unim- 



244 PUBLICATION'S 

portant. The history of a university may best be read in the rec- 
ords of its board of trustees and its faculties ; for the main steps of 
its progress are there recorded. The secretary of a faculty, like an 
administration secretar}^, needs a capacity to grasp quickly the 
thoughts of other people and reduce them to clear and precise 
written form. A secretary who can pick the kernel out of a good 
deal of discursive chaff, or express concisely the result of an in- 
volved debate, will be likely to make himself very useful. If he 
can do those things, and is fair and diligent^ he may be a quiet 
man of infrequent speech, and yet have a strong influence for 
good. If he possesses also some gift of speech and some charm of 
style, and a strong memory, his serviceableness will be greatly en- 
hanced." 

There are other affairs properly within the jurisdiction of facul- 
ties for which special secretaries may be advantageous. Such mat- 
ters are commonly attended to by committees. There are publica- 
tions, for example, of a kind that should be controlled by the fac- 
ult}^, being essentially distinct from the ^'^publicity bureau" under 
the president's control, mentioned on page 182. These affairs may 
grow to such proportions that no committee, even by sacrificing 
an inordinate amount of time, can manage them satisfactorily. If 
so, a secretary with suitable talents and attainments, giving his 
entire time, would be more efficient, and the arrangement would be 
economical although the salary of an assistant or adjunct professor 
be paid. This secretary should be responsible to the general fac- 
ulty. Questions would arise as to whether some particular matter 
should be handled by the faculty's secretary of publications or 
by the publicity bureau of the general administration, but ordinary 
cooperation between the two offices would usually settle them, and 
the president could decide any doubtful point. President Eliot 
describes the work in question as follows : 



ACADEMIC ENDORSEMENTS 245 

"Every vigorous university issues in these days a large number of 
periodical publications, including catalogues, reports, and announcements, 
and also a considerable number of literary and scientific publications such 
as annals or memoirs of observatories and museums, theses or essays 
produced by the teachers and graduate students of the university, contribu- 
tions from the various laboratories, syllabuses of lectures and laboratory 
courses, so-called studies in classics, history, and economics, and collections 
of examination papers. These various publications are issued in a steady 
stream throughout the year, and a competent agent must be employed to 
superintend the work of printing and issuing them. This work needs to 
be done with accuracy and efficiency; it affects every teacher and student 
in the university, and many of its future members. Since all the strong 
American universities have undertaken a great deal of new work within 
the last twenty years, it is necessary to bring this new work to the knowl- 
edge of graduates, teachers, parents, and pupils at school. The distribu- 
tion of this information must be as wide as the country; for the stronger 
universities are now resorted to from many parts of the United States, 
or indeed, from all parts." 

I mention, in contrast, another matter which careful organiza- 
tion would not pnt under the Jurisdiction of the faculty. If a 
students' aid bureau be maintained, it should, in my judgment, be 
an office in the sphere of the business manager. Consultation with 
the deans would often be required, but such an enterprise is essen- 
tiall}^ a part of the general business management of the institu- 
tion. The dean of the general faculty ought not to be burdened 
with its details. The aid extended by such a bureau may include 
both loans and information about miscellaneous employment during 
collegiate residence; but it ought not to have anything to do with 
professional (i. e., scholarly) employment either during residence 
or after leaving college. 

On the other hand, recommendation for academic ensfagements 
is a prerogative (if deserved, an obligation) of members of the fac- 
ulty. In addition to individual obligations, the faculty may deal 
with this matter in a systematic way ; but, in that case, there is no 
occasion for interdicting independent recommendations by members 



246 LIBRARIES AXD MUSEUMS 

of the faculty, — a crude impertinence that has been perpetuated by 
some faculties through which committee reports are ^railroaded' 
over the discouraged protests of members who understand the pro- 
prieties of life and professional conduct. There is a legitimate 
demand in all large universities for an office in which information 
about inquiries, most frequently from secondary schools^ are made 
available for students seeking such positions, and by which state- 
ments of academic record and endorsements may be forwarded to 
the inquiring correspondents. Such an office decently and relia- 
bh" conducted may be very serviceable. A committee of the fac- 
ultj^, with special secretary should conduct it. 

Libraries and Museums 

There is much administrative work connected with libraries and 
museums, and also with some laboratories. The heads of such 
parts of a college or university are usually called directors; but 
such officers have a different function from that of the directors of 
large schools or colleges in a university, who are simply assistants 
to the president.* The latter sort of directors are administrators, 
secondary to the president, and are required only when the magni- 
tude and complexit}^ of the institution renders it necessary for the 
president to have such lieutenants. Libraries and museums, on the 
other hand, should have the same status in the institution as other 
scholarly departments. Their "directors" should be simply mem- 
bers of the faculty. The only difference between a library or a 
museum and other departments within the faculty that need be 
considered here, lies in the facts that the former seldom has or 
requires more than one man of first rank, and that the affairs of a 
library or museum require a kind of authority in that ranking 
officer over assistants such as is neither needed nor suitable in an 
ordinary department of instruction. I believe an ordinary depart- 
ment acts best as a committee of the whole, electing its own chair- 



*See page 230 et sq. 



DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION 247 

man. The director of a library or museum should doubtless be 
appointed as such by the regents — of course, like every other mem- 
ber of the faculty, on the president's nomination, the difference 
being that for the department of history, for instance, the president 
should nominate merely professors and instructors in history, leav- 
ing them to choose the chairman of their department. 

I have already pointed out the propriety and the probable need 
of a director (in the sense of an administrator secondary to the 
president) of agricultural experiment stations. I add here that 
ordinary laboratories, such as those of the dt-nartments of physics, 
chemistry, zoology, botany, etc., do not ne^d directors of that 
sort. If such a laboratory be so complex that the president deems 
it best not to leave its direction to the internal organization of its 
department, a director may be appointed by the regents; but his 
position should be merely a professorship in the department, "^ith 
only the authority necessary to discharge his special function. He 
ought not to be an administrative officer looking directly to the 
president; but a member of the faculty responsible to his depart- 
ment and to his faculty. 

Department Organization 

In preceding chapters it has been brought out in various connec- 
tions that the work for which colleges and universities are insti- 
tuted is performed in the departments; and their relations to each 
other and to the entire institution have been considered in connec- 
tion with the budget, and at other points. The nature of its func- 
tion makes a department a true unit, yet this unitary element of 
the whole organism is internally complex. Its inner organiza- 
tion must be considered. How that organization may affect the 
workers in the department is a fundamental question. I cannot 
do better than offer the following condensation of a paper on "De- 
partmental Organization,'' read less than two years ago before 
the N'ational Association of State Universities bv one of the wisest 



248 DEPARTMENT ORGAN-IZATION 

and most truly expert administrators in this (or any other) coun- 
try, President Albert Ross Hill : 

"In a large university faculty it becomes practically necessary to make 
a division into departments by subjects, each department including the 
teachers of that subject. These teachers all know much about one an- 
other's work, and constitute a group with homogeneous interests and sim- 
ilar aims. . . . They can readily discuss within the department thQ 
best methods of instruction for use in treating their subject, the complete- 
ness or incompleteness of the courses offered, the expediency of changing 
courses, of alternating some of them from year to year, of exchanging 
courses from time to time among members of the department, etc. 

"How best to organize such a department so as to secure co-operation 
and unity of action . . . and to develop initiative and a feeling of 
responsibility on the part of all the teachers of the department, in short, 
how to organize a department faculty so as to make it the most effective 
educational agency possible within the institution is the problem of this 
paper. And the thesis proposed for discussion is, that the system having 
a chairman of a department, with all its teachers, especially all its teachers 
of professorial rank, responsible for the efficiency of the department, is 
better than the one in more common use — that of having a head of each 
department with power to fix schedules, alternate courses, determine pol- 
icies, etc., without the necessity of consulting other teachers in the depart- 
ment. . . . 

"The type of organization quite common today is based upon the notion 
that only one man should have anything to do with the policies and the 
administration of a department, and that all other teachers in the depart- 
ment are to be regarded as his assistants. This paper is meant to voice 
a protest against this type of departmental organization. Instead of it, 
the proposal is made that each department shall have a chairman to 
attend to the routine work — if the department is not large enough to 
require a secretary also, — to bring the interests of the subject to the atten- 
tion of the general administration of the university, etc., but without 
authority to determine policies, fix schedules, and the like, except after 
full discussion and vote by all teachers of professorial ranlc in the depart- 
ment. . . . 

"Among the advantages I see in such an organization are the following: 
"1. It is consistent with the organization of the larger groups of 



DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION 249 

teachers to which the department faculties belong. . . . They can vote 
on all questions of university policy, and on matters affecting the interests 
of the school or college to which their work especially belongs. Why, then, 
should they not have a vote in matters affecting the interests or policies 
of the department in which their courses are offered, and with whose 
subject-matter they are supposed to be primarily concerned? 

"2. It would tend to bring out in departmental discussions every edu- 
cational opinion or viewpoint, and all inventiveness regarding methods of 
teaching and administration, to the enlightenment of all the members and 
to the benefit of the entire university. It is a mistake to suppose that 
all wisdom in a department centers in its head or chairman. His admin- 
istrative or executive ability may have won him his position; but in 
scholarship, educational insight, and ideals, he may be inferior to other 
professors of the same department. 

"3. It would tend to give each teacher of professorial rank a feeling 
of responsibility for the work of the department as a whole, that cannot 
be expected of him when all matters except those affecting the conduct 
of his own courses are settled for him by a colleague designated 'the head 
of the depai^tment.' 

"4. It would tend to encourage a loyalty to the department and to the 
institution on the part of every teacher on the permanent staff, which is 
a highly important factor in the success of a university. Not much in 
this direction can be expected of a teacher who has no authority, no 
responsibility, and no freedom aside from the conduct of the few courses 
that he himself teaches, courses that are perhaps assigned to him against 
his will by a superior ofl&cer of instruction. 

"5. It would tend to set free every teacher's power of initiative, and 
all his inventiveness regarding methods of instruction, the aims and ideals 
of the department, etc., and would thus make him a much more efficient 
teacher, and make the department a better educational instrument in the 
realization of the educational aims of the entire university. 

"6. It would give greater essential harmony in departmental effort. 
The harmony which comes from enforced co-operation cannot be half so 
effective as that which arises from the voluntary co-operation of a number 
of free personalities, when educational, instead of business, effort is at 
stake. In fact, directorial methods among university professors cannot 
produce real harmony at all; and the system of department headships is 



250 DEPAETMENT ORGANIZATION" 

always liable to introduce such methods. The surest safeguard is to be 
found in the committee system of departmental organization. 

"7. The committee system gives greater flexibility of organization, and 
provides better for the growth and improvement of the teaching force in 
any department. New professors can be introduced into the department 
without subordinating them to some one, perhaps of inferior ability, 
already on the staff, and without the necessity of subordinating the senior 
professors to them. In fact, this system will eliminate many of the occa- 
sions for dropping professors from the staff, as teachers of professorial 
rank who have already served the university for a number of years can 
usually be assigned important functions in the departments; provided 
they are not department heads who can block all progress or force a 
situation which calls for their dismissal. 

"8. It would prevent members of the faculty from getting the notion 
that the university is primarily a business corporation, to be managed 
after business methods, and that the man held in greatest esteem is the 
one who can do administrative work rather than teach and investigate. 
It would thus tend to improve the educational ideals of the entire teach- 
ing force. 

"9. Experience seems to indicate that the system works better than the 
old one, and that the advantages already mentioned belong to it. Harvard 
has followed the system for a long time. Wisconsin has used it in the 
faculty of arts and sciences. Missouri has gradually adopted it, first, in 
the case of departments where vacant headships arose; and finally, after 
discussion and vote by the entire faculty, it has been unanimously adopted 
throughout the entire university. 

"In regard to the operation of the committee system, a few questions 
will naturally arise that may call for brief discussion: 

"1. How are the chairmen to be designated? Should they be appointed 
by the governing board, the president, or other administrative ofl&cer, or 
should they be elected by vote of the teachers of professorial rank in the 
department? The chief danger I see in the latter policy is that some 
wire-pulling may be indulged in among members of the department, and 
that some tendency may here and there show itself in the direction of 
honoring some colleague, who is felt to be entitled to the chairmanship 
because of priority of appointment, or the like. On the other hand, the 
members of a department ought to know one another better than the 



DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION 251 

administrative officers know them, and wisdom in selection ought to 
develop with the exercise of the function. . . . Furthermore, it must 
be borne in mind that the chairmanship of a department organized under 
the committee system will not likely be coveted by ambitious men as much 
as the headships have often been, especially where the latter, as is com- 
monly the case, involve additional salary. 

"2. For how long a period should the appointments be made? When 
once the committee system is fully established and understood by the 
faculty, I do not see that this question is a very vital one. Changing 
chairmen from time to time would tend to emphasize the purely adminis- 
trative and executive nature of their functions and prevent the chairman- 
ship from becoming a headship again. But there is sometimes only one 
good man for the position in a department. . . . On general principles, 
the following seems to me true: the administrative work of a president 
or dean of a large college or school is so great as to demand practically 
his entire time and to make it necessary that he regard it as his life 
work, in short, that he make administration his profession; but the admin- 
istrative work of a single department is not of sufficient importance or 
extent to demand this of the chairman, and permanency of tenure does 
not seem necessary. Certainly during the transition period, when adopt- 
ing the committee system for the first time, it would be best not to permit 
one professor to act as chairman of a department for many years con- 
secutively. 

"3. I have not attempted to deal with the strictly business features 
of a department, such as purchase of laboratory supplies, care of univer- 
sity property, and similar phases of university housekeeping. But even 
in the purchase of laboratory supplies I should regard it as unfortunate 
to have one man, as director of the laboratories of a department, author- 
ized to spend all the funds of the department without consulting his col- 
leagues. The same is true of the purchase of books, etc., in the depart- 
ment library. Without further discussion of this special phase of the 
subject, however, I may remark that I should think reasonable perma- 
nency of appointment would be desirable in the directorship of a labora- 
tory, and also that the appointment, involving as it does the expenditure 
of the institution's funds, should be made by the governing board. 

"All further details I leave to be brought out in the course of the 
discussion. 



252 DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION" 

"Vice-President Caeeuth: Might it not be well sometimes to appoint 
one of the younger men as chairman?" 

"Peesident Hill: I think it would be advisable in some cases. One 
of the ablest men in our faculty induced me last spring to appoint an 
assistant professor as chairman of his department, and he is as efficient 
in the position as can be wished for." 

"President Venable: I have had much difficulty with the younger 
men in the departments, the heads of departments not always looking after 
them properly. Would this young chairman President Hill speaks of feel 
that he could look after the men working in his department and see that 
their duties are properly discharged, or are they under him? In what 
way is efficiency secured?" 

"President Hill: It happens that in this particular department there 
are two professors and two assistant professors, and no instructors. But, 
as a general rule, the whole group of professors and assistant professors 
should be held responsible for the work of the instructors, and should be 
looked to for advice regarding their reappointment or promotion. Indeed, 
I received a report last year of a discussion between the professors and 
the assistant professors in one department in regard to the instructors 
in another department that, I think, was much more helpful than any- 
thing I might have obtained from the chairman of that other department 
alone. It gave me much more advice. Perhaps the chairman system 
throws a little more responsibility on the president and dean; but, in 
ease the president is not well acquainted with the work of the instructors, 
I think he gets better advice from several, than by simply relying on the 
heads of the departments. At present, I know our instructors pretty well. 
I presume we have a larger number of full and assistant professors in 
proportion to the number of our instructors than in some of the larger 
state universities, but I think our situation is probably a fair example." 

"President McVey: Does the chairman plan give the administration 
a sufficient check upon the work of the instructors? Such a check, it 
seems to me, can only be secured through the assistance of heads of depart- 
ments. The point raised by President Venable is a real point." 

"Peesident Hill: Back of his question is the assumption that efficiency 
can be secured from the younger men of the faculty only by putting some 
one in a position to force efficiency. Now, I do not think that that rep- 
resents a proper educational ideal, and I think it unfair to the younger 
men." 

"President Hutchins: At Michigan we have small departments, and 



DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATIOX 253 

large departments — departments of all sizes. It does not seem necessary 
that the organization of all departments should be rigidly uniform." 

"Pbesident Hill: So far as the working of the system is concerned, 
it makes little difference whether the departments are large or small. 
Leadership these young men certainly need; but that leadership will show 
itself whatever the size of the department. I haven't the slightest doubt 
that a man Avhose influence is great by virtue of his ability will become 
a leader in his department and stimulate others to render the best pos- 
sible service; and he can bring his influence to bear just as well with 
little or no official power. But how can you deal with one department 
in one way, and with another department in another way? I think our 
situation in Missouri is very much better now, after the whole faculty 
has adopted the new policy, than when I was dealing with some depart- 
ments in advance of this general action, and leaving other departments 
as they were." 

"President Wheelee: In my opinion, the proper organization of de- 
partments constitutes the best opportunity of making advance in the 
internal life of the universities today. I am in sympathy with most of 
the views the paper presents. When I first went to Berkeley, I found in 
existence there what is now called the feudal system. . . . We have 
no one rule. The older professors have been allowed to go on to the 
conclusion of their term of office without change of their prerogatives. 
No one, however, is appointed as head professor. No one receives a salary 
as head of a department. There are a number of departments in which 
there are several full professors. Each department has a secretary. 
. . . The organization of the department through its department meet- 
ings is more important than the question of headship." 

"Dean Biege: I will try to state briefly our experience at Wisconsin 
regarding departmental organization. We never had any system except 
that of the committee. At first, the committee consisted, legally, of full 
and associate professors; now the assistant professors are regular mem- 
bers of the committee. But recommendations regarding promotions, sal- 
aries, and matters connected with the annual budget come from a com- 
mittee limited to professors and associate professors. In the older organi- 
zation, the chairman was said to have the powers ordinarily belonging to 
the chairman of a committee. In the newer scheme, his powers are more 
explicitly stated, but, in general, he is the executive officer of the depart- 
ment. He is not to dictate the policy or to order each man's work; but 
it is his duty to see that the departmental committee adopts a policy 



354 EANK — TENURE SALARIES 

which he can execute. In short, he has the same responsibility for the 
committee that a chairman ordinarily has, and he has whatever powers 
are needed for carrying out his duties. . . . The chairman is appointed 
by the dean and president in consultation, after ascertaining the wishes 
of the members of the department. . . . Within the department we 
expect that responsibilities and powers will go together. Large depart- 
ments practically divide into branches, as English into literature and 
composition. The man or men in immediate charge of each branch are 
primarily responsible for it, and have corresponding influence in regard 
to policy and in regard to appointments. Appointments to positions 
higher than that of assistant professors are regarded as matters for the 
university, rather than for the department. Nominations are made by 
the president after consulting with the professors of the departments 
interested, but no formal recommendations are made by a committee. 
The departmental committees do not make recommendations regarding 
salaries of members above the rank of assistant professor." 

"President Hutchins: Are we to conclude from what you have said 
that you deem the general adoption in the immediate future of the chair- 
man system to be advisable?" 

"Peesident Hill: I assume a reasonable time for making the change. 
The principle, however, might be announced and generally accepted with- 
out delay." 

Rank — Tenure — Salaries 

The general features of the administrative practice that deter- 
mines the rank, tenure of office, and scale of salaries of faculty 
members, ought to be reduced to a well articulated, suitably elastic, 
and plainly intelligible program designed upon sound principles. 
Each institution must study out for itself the salaries required by 
the scale and cost of living in its environment, making changes as 
required by changing social and economic conditions. This is one 
of the most important responsibilities of the governing board. 
This first principle of right action in this matter, is, that provision 
should be made to do well everything that is attempted. Other 
guiding principles look to ways and means of getting and keeping 
high-minded and able men in the faculty. 

The ranks will more easily fit actual conditions if they be more 
than the minimum — instructor, assistant professor, professor. The 



KAXK TEXURE — SALARIES 255 

scale of salaries ought always to correspond definitely with the 
scale of rank. It is advantageous, therefore, to have the elasticity 
of such a scale as — instructor, assistant professor, adjunct profes- 
sor, associate professor, professor. Advancement over more than 
one grade at a single promotion should not be prohibited or very 
rare. Unless some colleges and universities will desist from 
putting young men and women in teaching positions before they 
have pursued graduate courses of study, it would be well for them 
to make jet one more rank for the lowest grade, such as "assistant 
instructor.^^ When a juan proved elsewhere is called to a faculty 
position, he should be located in the scale of rank and salary in 
substantial accordance with his professional merit as compared 
with his new colleagues. 

The following scale is submitted as an illustration for a case in 
which one might rise through each stage, from the bottom to the 
top. The salaries set down are mereh^ suggestions. The first 
of the alternative figures for each rank represents a minimum; the 
second would generally be more just and more expedient; and in 
some cities, or if a university desires to command (as far as sala- 
ries can command) its choice of men, a higher scale is required: 

Unproved instructors should be appointed for one year, at a sal- 
ary of $1,000 or $1,200, where the doctorate or a professional de- 
gree (or its equivalent in independent study and experience) is 
required.* After one or two years of probation this instructor 
should be dropped, or reappointed without limit of time and with 
vote in his division faculty, at $1,300 or $1,500 with some small 
advance for each subsequent year, if retained. If this approved 
instructor is retained more than t^-o or three years, he should be 
made assistant professor, at a salar}^ adequate to the support of a 
wife and several small children, say $2,000 or $2,400. A man who 
does not deserve to be advanced to the rank of assistant professor 



*Xotliing of the nature of the "assistant instructor" mentioned above is 
here considered. 



^5Q 'RANK TEXUEE SALARIES 

after serving five years as instructor ought not to be retained at all. 
After the assistant professorship, it seems to me that continued 
promotion to the highest rank after stated periods ought not to be 
the only alternative to dismissal. The appointment as assistant 
professor should be for a term of years, say, five years. At the end 
of each term the assistant professor should be promoted, or be reap- 
pointed with small raise of salary, or be dropped. An adjunct 
professor should be appointed for a term of five ^-ears at $2,700 or 
$3,000, with the same alternatives at the end of each term as sug- 
gested for the previous stage. The appointment as associate pro- 
fessor should be for life at $3,000 or $3,500, advanceable at any 
time to the highest rank. The initial salary of a full professorship 
should be $4,000 or $4,500. The salary in a life professorship 
should rise every five years by some advance until the maximum of 
$3,500 or $4,000 for an associate professorship, and $4,500 or $5,000 
for the full professorship be reached. 

Election to a deanship should raise a man of lower rank to the 
rank and salary of associate professor, or, if of that rank already, 
to the salary of full professor of same length of service, or, if a 
full professor, to the maximum salary. Upon resignation from 
deanship, or other termination of services as dean, the officer should 
return to the rank and salary determined by the highest point in 
the scale attainable (without extraordinary action "i during the time 
of his service as dean, with the benefit of counting any fraction of a 
period for a raise in salary as the entire period. 

The salaries of the minor administrative positions (registrars, 
secretaries, etc.) may be assimilated according to age and scholar- 
ship to the salaries of the teachers, with some premium for these 
less attractive places. President Eliot is right in holding : 

"In general the administrative posts in a "university are less attractive 
than the teaching posts, because they do not offer the satisfaction of 
literary or scientific attainment, the long, uninterrupted vacations which 
teachers enjoy, or the pleasures of intimate, helpful intercourse with a 
stream of young men of high intellectual ambition [or, I would add, the 



RANK — TENURE SALARIES 257 

opportunity for professional development and advancement]. Accordingly, 
salaries for able and altruistic young men ought to be somewhat higher 
in administrative posts than they are for men of corresponding age and 
merit in teaching posts." 

As to tlie president, I have no sympathy with the opinion, much 
expressed in discussions published during the last two years, that 
his salary ought not to exceed the salary of a full professor. The 
practical social demands made upon the president, as well as his 
responsibilities and burdens and risk, justify a salary well nigh 
double that of any professor. In mentioning the "risk" assumed 
by the president of the average college or university, I had in mind 
a far worse risk than death; for T am one of those who deem, 
^^Wisdom is gray hairs unto men, and an unspotted life is ripe old 
d^e." But President W. T. Foster states : "The college president 
is already regarded as a poor risk by life insurance companies." 
Such risk would be much reduced if the forms of organization and 
practices of administration recommended in this book were insti- 
tuted; but as matters stand, I am sure that the life insurance com- 
panies have overlooked an item from the actuary's, if not from the 
agent^s point of view, if they do not regard the life of a college 
president as a poor risk. 

Of theories opposed to such a program for rank and salarv as I 
have recommended, only one seems to me to merit discussion — after 
all that has been presented in previous chapters. Professor Jas- 
trow contends : 

"What I emphasize as essential is that men are elected to positions of 
definite rank, for definite periods, with definite understandings. The cen- 
tral issue that is to be determined at the close of the period is whether 
the university desires to retain the services of the occupant; if so, he 
steps to the next grade with constantly increasing salary. . . . More 
rapid promotion is always open to promptly established worth and effi- 
ciency, and should indeed be the rule, not the exception. Such measures 
of elasticity the system designedly retains. . . . 

"A living within the academic fold should not be regarded as a reward 



258 RANK TENURE — SALARIES 

to be given to the exceptionally deserving when circumstances indicate 
that the only method of retaining their services is to yield what for years 
has been unwisely and unjustly withheld, but is to be regarded as a 
natural privilege for all worthy of the academic life. There is not the 
slightest discrepancy in the inevitable fact that A and B, men of quite 
unequal merit and value to their institution, should be enjoying the same 
income. There is nothing in the slightest degree disconcerting in so 
inevitable a consequence of human variability; and in a less commercially 
minded community, no one would think of remarking upon so obvious a 
situation. A man's academic worth should not and cannot in the least 
be measured by his salary; and any attempt to do so is a deep injury to 
the profession. If some one has made a mistake in judgment in asking a 
wrong man to fill a chair, when better men are available, and if the mis- 
take cannot be remedied without repudiating obligations already incurred, 
it is far better to seek any solution of the situation than the one that 
sets the emphasis upon the very point that has no place in the academic 
life. Endowed professorships insuring adequate livings are for this reason 
far more ideal a system than American circumstances make practicable, 
"I have thus dwelt upon the more serious of the unfortunate conse- 
quences of the dominant systemless practices in American institutions, 
and of the possibilities of their correction. It is even more than a mis- 
fortune; it is indeed an indignity that a scholar of tried worth and repu- 
tation — one who in another country would be an homme arrive with a 
secure living — should still find the very wherewithal of his sustenance, 
and the appraisal of his rank meted out to him by the uncertain esteem 
of one or two of his colleagues — for such the president and the dean are — 
placed in a position of authority by reason of qualities unrelated to any 
such Jupiterian function. His helplessness in a situation, for which inade- 
quate administration or administrative autocracy has left no place for 
remedy, hardly even for protest, may well invite despair," 

The general ideas and impulses expressed in the foregoing state- 
ment deserve sympathy and respect. They are essentially right. 
But they run to extremes at two practical issues. After due moder- 
ation at these points, there would remain no inconsistency with the 
procedure I advocate. The organic check and safeguard described 
at pages 1.29 and 133 should render the president's power of nomina- 



RANK TENURE SALARIES 259 

tion as satisfactory as it is appropriate to his responsibility and 
necessary under the system of government and method of remuner- 
ating members of the faculty in American universities. The only 
remaining difference lies in my advice that, after attaining the low- 
est rank of the professoriate, automatic promotion after regular 
periods ought not to be the only alternative to dismissal. My pro- 
posal is not based on the idea denounced by Professor Jastrovt^. I 
thoroughly agree with him, that salaries cannot be made commen- 
surate with merit and worth to the institution, and that it is inevit- 
able and not in the slightest degree disconcerting that men of 
unequal merit and value should enjoy the same income. But it 
does not follow from this calm and sane recognition of the essential 
disparity between moral worth and material reward, that every man 
entering the service ought to pass automatically to the his^hest dig- 
nity and responsibility. There are men of a calibre not fitted to 
the responsibilities of the highest rank, who might still be merito- 
rious and permanently useful in less exalted positions. I do not 
see why the embarrassing situation should be created arbitrarily 
whereby, at the end of five years, no choice is left except to turn 
a teacher out or to promote him in rank. Mr. S. A. Bullard, Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, in dis- 
cussing this question remarked : 

"If we have a rigid system by which promotion may he expected, tt is 
evidently going to work a hardship to some members of the faculty. For 
instance, a certain member of the faculty is apparently not strong. He 
does not shine like some others, but he is a sober, earnest, hard-working 
man and accomplishes what he undertakes to accomplish. . . . Judgment 
has to be used in such a case, lest a man might be dropped who does not 
shine brightly, but whose work in his department gives good results, SiJid. 
promotes the general interest of the university. What are you going to do, 
when the five years are up? You will, under the system suggested, have 
to say to him that he must drop out. . . . We cannot make a cast- 
iron rule for the promotion of every man. Men must stand on their 
individual qualities and character. . . . Presidents of universities also 



260 RECKUITING A FACULTY 

have to pass under inspection, and it comes np in the board every cnce in 
a while whether it would not be a good idea to have a change of admin- 
istration." 

Recruitmg a Faculty 

A few general principles that should guide in selecting individ- 
uals to fill the nnmeroiis vacancies and new positions occurring in 
the faculty of every growing college, may be briefly stated. As 
m nearly all matters of administration (as distinguished from 
organization*), President Eliot's counsel in these regards could 
hardly be improved, and the reader is referred to his book Univer- 
sity Administration. 

If practicable the president and his advisers should have seen 
and conversed with the man under consideration. The whole per- 
sonality, as well as professional attainments and skill in teaching 
and in research, should be regarded. As a means to this, the 
presidents of universities should attend the meetings of learned 
societies, and the institution should offer to every member of the 
faculty payment once a year of railroad fare to some such meeting. 
Other expenses should not be paid, lest temptations to make trips 
for selfish reasons be extended. Besides the direct benefit to the 
specialist of attending national assemblies of his coworkers, there 
are great advantages in the matter here referred to. Speaking 
of the societies devoted to special branches of knowledge, Prsident 
Eliot says : 

"To the annual meetings of these societies men come from all parts of 
the country, and spend a few days together in earnest discussion of topics 
in which th.ey have a common interest. The professors of these several 
subjects in any one university will gradually have opportunities to measure 
and weigh all the other active members of the same society, and particu- 
larly to see and hear the younger members of the society. Much valuable 
information is, therefore, to be obtained through these meetings of special- 
ists concerning candidates for teachers' places in the colleges and univer- 



^See pages 240-241. 



RECEUITING A FACULTY 2G1 

sities of the country. At these meetings much can be learned about the 
personality of the men who come to them. The whole meeting will learn 
that such a one is high-minded and winning, and a master of his subject, 
and that such another is rude and unattractive, though doubtless able." 

A faculty should be recruited from a variety of sources. The 
constant temptation to in-breeding must be resisted. A large uni- 
versity needs to try out a large number of young instructors in 
annual appointments, — persons who have just received (or have 
nearly completed the studies for) the doctorate or an equivalent 
professional degree. But not all even of these should be of its 
own upbringing. The professors of every rank and the instructors 
without limit of time in the staff of any department are the best 
judges of character and capabilities of the annual appointees in the 
department. Their recommendations for appointments to in- 
structorships without limit of time ought to be followed, pro- 
vided they and the president have looked about to discover young 
men in other institutions who have distinguished themselves, and 
duly consider such of these as may be obtainable in comparison with 
their own probationers. The call of a strong university in good 
repute will often bring to an instructorship without limit of time^ 
not only the most promising of similar instructors, but even assist- 
ant professors in weaker or less congenial institutions. All 
instructorships are distinctly and emphatically probationary 
appointments.* 

At every stage the next higher rank ought not to be filled exclu- 
sively by advancement from within. Men called from other institu- 



*President Eliot acutely observes that the probationary period ought 
to cover the time within which marriage is probable. He says: "Mar- 
riage is quite as apt to affect either favorably or unfavorably the efficiency 
and general usefulness of a university teacher, as of professional and busi- 
ness men in any other line. It is a good deal safer to give a life office 
to a married man on whom marriags has proved to have a good effect, 
than to a single man who may shortly be married with uncertain results.'* 
If this principle were somewhat recognized, it might operate as a salutary 
encouragement to earlier and wiser marriages. 



262 TREEDOM OF TEACHING 

tions are subject to the regular conditions of the established scale; 
if called to positions below life-professorships, the institution is 
under no peculiar obligation to retain them beyond stipulated pe- 
riods, should they prove unsatisfactory. Of course, when a man of 
recognized standing and power is called to a full professorship (or 
to an associate professorship, if life-tenure belongs to that rank) 
an honorable institution has committed itself to a life-time en- 
gagement, no matter whether experience brings disappointment 
or not. 

I shall say nothing about pensions for superannuated teachers. 
There is abundant literature on the subject. It does not seem 
to me to be of vital importance. Teachers could, if need be, get 
along as well as others without old-age and service pensions, if 
properly respected in their calling and suitably remunerated during 
their service. This is a hard world, and all improvable conditions 
should be improved for all men; but meanwhile there are compen- 
sations in some seeming hardships, and some responsibilities and 
some risks may strengthen if rightly comprehended and accepted. 

Freedom of Teaching 

The situation of the professor in American universities in re- 
fpect to freedom of teaching has improved so much during the last 
thirty years, that he has left not much cause of complaint. In some 
denominational colleges religious intolerance, and in a few state 
institutions ''polities'' or the clamor of some group calling itself the 
public, has occasionally wrought folly in Israel; but such occur- 
rences are always widely denounced, are offensive to public opinion 
at large, and are contrary to the characteristic policy and practice 
of our reputable universities. Security in any proper expression 
of scientific views seems fairly assured for the future, — unless, 
indeed, the device of putting a central board of control over a 
subordinate board of "regents" should spread enough to involve 
many state universities in its toils. Meanwhile, of course, every 



FREEDOM OF TEACHING 263 

clear transgression ought to be denounced ("vigilance is the price 
of liberty") in a way that will instil, in those inclined to trans- 
gress, a wholesome fear of righteous indignation. 

There being no respectable difference of opinion about ■ trans- 
gressions against genuine freedom of teaching, it will be more 
profitable to consider the matter from another side. Judging from 
the discussions that follow every alleged trespass against lehrfrei- 
heit, it appears that some American professors do not understand 
what the lehrfreiheit they invoke should be, and is. Some seem 
"to imagine that it should be, and that it is in Germanv, an official 
immunity, such as that of the Cuban legislators who cannot be law- 
fully arrested for any crime whatsoever. Lehrfreiheit is not a license 
or a stipulation of any sort; it is a principle, a code of honor. The 
freedom is the reverse side of a responsibility. Like everv other 
principle of conduct, or code of honor, no man can learn what it is 
from any formula or set of rules; to understand it, he must learn 
ivhat it is from those who live it. Accordingh'-, I cannot better 
illustrate, than by quoting two men who have been personally 
through long lives noble exponents of the principle, and who have 
lived those lives in a university which, for twenty years at least, 
has kept the faith as blamelessly as any other in the world, — Presi- 
'dent Schurman and Professor Creighton, of Cornell University. 

During the current year a professor was dismissed by Weslejan 
TJniversity, after twenty years' service, on grounds (as publicly 
stated by the president of the institution) which Professor Creigh- 
ton deemed ''trivial and puerile.'' In censuring the dismissal both 
on the grounds alleged and on reports of the "real ground" which 
"seem reliable," Professor Creighton took occasion in a communi- 
<3ation published in Science, Mar. 21, 1913, to quote the following 
passage from an address delivered by President Schurman in 

1897: 

r 

"If it is asserted that the business of the college or university is to 
teach that which the average man may believe, or that which is acceptable 



264 FREEDOM OF TEACHING 

to the -university, or that which the board of trustees may assert as the 
truth, the answer must always be that such a course contravenes the very 
principle on which the university was founded, and however true it may 
be that the majority must rule in the body politic, the motto of the uni- 
versity must be, one man with God's truth is a majority. There is also 
a second principle involved. It is perfectly clear that every teacher must 
be free to carry out his inquiries and to announce and proclaim if he 
wishes what he has observed, or in dealing with the individual student 
the teacher must be free to present all phases of the question as they 
occur to him — otherwise he has missed his great vocation as a teacher. 
"Money is needed by universities. I know it well. . . . Yet if 
money is to be got for the institution by the suppression of the truth, by 
setting any limitation whatever upon the freedom of the teachers to 
inquire or to announce the results of their inquiries, better a thousand- 
times that the institution should go out of existence. The end of a uni- 
versity is truth and the promotion of truth. Money may be a means tO' 
that end, and as a means it may kindle a great light; as an end it caiv 
only produce total darkness. Hence, any attempt to set limitations upon 
the independence of the teaching staff must be resisted, must be unwar- 
ranted." 

In a following issue of Science (Apr. 18, 1913) a correspondent^ 
after stating that he regarded the sentiments of President Schur- 
man "as highly commendahle/' wrote cynically and despairingly as 
follows : 

"Academic freedom is like friendship, 'but a name that lures the soul 
to sleep.' . . . Let us suppose, for instance, that when Professor 
Schurman's address was published, a subordinate instructor in the univer- 
sity had spoken as follows: 'When President Schurman speaks of "God's 
truth" he speaks of something about which he knows no more than a 
gibbering idiot in the nearest asylum. God, if He exists, has apparently 
not declared Himself to anj^body. All such allusions are either mere 
catering to popular superstitions, or are on the same plane as the beliefs 
of the lowest savages.' How long would this instructor retain his place 
in the university? I would be pleased to hear what your correspondent 
would advocate concerning a person who should so express himself. A 
hundred other examples can be selected." 



FREEDOM OF TEACHING 265 

Before giving Professor Creighton^s answer to the correspond- 
ent's main question^ I will make squarely two observations: 
Academic freedom is something like friendship, bnt the similitude 
is to be found in the idea, as expressed b}^ Kingsley: "It is only 
the great hearted who can be true friends, the mean the cowardly 
can never know what true friendship is.'' The assertion that friend- 
ship is only a name that lures the soul to sleep, like every other 
cynical statement has some petty basis of fact, because nothing 
human is perfect; nevertheless Cicero's saying is the Truth: "It 
is like taking the sun out of the world to bereave human life of 
friendship." In the second place, the "instance" chosen by the 
correspondent does not involve freedom of teaching at all. In the 
context in question there is no difference between the phrases, "one 
man with God's truth is a majority," and "one with Truth is a 
majority"; and therefore the perpetrator of the supposed folly, if 
intelligently accused, would be charged with wanton incivility, not 
with scientific doubts or denials of man's knowledge of God. If 
dismissed, it would be for conduct unbecoming a scholar (to say 
nothing of a gentleman), — not for skepticism. He might express 
the same doubts or denials in a reasonable connection, and proper 
manner, without disturbing anyone or being himself disturbed. 
Professor Creighton's answer ought to make the matter plain to 
one able to comprehend any ethical problem : 

"When the necessity of freedom for university teachers and investigators 
is emphasized, it is never assumed that this freedom carries with it a 
license to do or say anything and everything. University teachers do not 
claim that they constitute a class with special privileges. But as a body 
of men with serious and important work to do, they claim the freedom 
that is necessary to enable them to perform this work and to fulfill their 
obligations to society. Freedom in this field, as everywhere, is a reason- 
able freedom, involving law, responsibility, and due regard for others. 
Academic freedom has its roots and its justification in the duty which 
the teacher owes to his students and to the community. It may well be 
that at times it is just as important to emphasize this duty and respon- 



266 FREEDOM OF TEACHING 

sibility as to call attention to the necessity of freedom. But one side 
is the counterpart and complement of the other: where there is no free- 
dom there can be no responsibility, and where there is no feeling of respon- 
sibility there can be no genuine freedom. If this is true, it would seem 
to follow that the limits of a reasonable freedom cannot be fixed by any 
abstract definition. What are the reasonable limits in any particular 
case must be decided by the whole set of circumstances, as judged by 
reasonable men living in a reasonable society. Of course this involves a 
circle; but there is no way of escaping it." 

If any reader, who does not already know, would like to hear 
what lehrfreiheii really is in the land of its glory and fullest flor- 
escence, I refer him to the noble work. The German Universities, 
by Friederich Paulsen, Professor of Philosophy in the University 
of Berlin, or to its admirable authorized translation by Professor 
Frank Thilly, then (1906) in Princeton University, now Professor 
of Philosophy in Cornell University. If that book were Instantly 
read by every faculty member and by every student, and by every 
president and regent of American universities, the ideas thereby 
engendered would quickly work many needed reforms — not by 
way of any imitation, but from the sheer effect of enlightment.* 
The whole book shines with one candid spirit, and the waiter is as 
sagacious as he is sincere. There is a chapter of nearly forty 
pages on Freedom of Teaching. 

The German people are, as Helmholz declared, ^^more fearless 



*Professor Thilly, himself familiar with the German universities as well 
as with the best in America, says in his preface to the translation: 

"It ought to be studied by every man who takes any part in university 
legislation, whether as president, professor, or member of a controlling 
board, and by every student who desires to get the most out of his uni- 
versity course. It is so rich in valuable information, so full of practical 
suggestions, that it cannot fail to prove useful and helpful to all who 
sincerely desire to perform the tasks growing out of their connection with 
university life, in the best possible manner. Particularly in this country 
where things are in the transition state and where, in spite of much that 
is crude and charlatanical, the desire is strong to assimilate all that is 
good in the higher institutions of other countries, will a work like this 
assist us in finding the right path." 



FREEDOM OF TEACHING 267 

of the consequences of the whole truth than any other people" ; and, 
perhaps, in no other country will the people ever take as much 
interest and pride in the freedom of teaching, or guard it so jeal- 
ously, as do the Germans. "The German university,'^ says Presi- 
dent G. Stanley Hall, ^"^is the freest spot on earth . . . but the 
most perfect liberty was never more triumphantly vindicated by its 
fruits." I am here emphasizing, however, the fact that in the Ger- 
man freedom of teaching, responsibility is recognized and enforced. 
Professor Paulsen explains: 'We can neither justly demand nor 
reasonably expect that the state should voluntarily expose itself and 
its legality to whatever insults the theorists appointed by it as 
teachers may choose to offer. Such unlimited academic freedom 
would manifestly be conceivable only as an evidence of the state's 
absolute contempt for the professor's teaching; it would be placing 
it on a level with the pratings of an anarchistic demagogue . . . Just 
as there can be such a thing as supersensitiveness, there can be su- 
pertolerance." The Germans see both sides of the question. For the 
very reason that they will not suffer political interference with 
teaching, they will not allow the teacher to be a practical politician. 
"The question might well be asked," says Paulsen, "whether parti- 
san activity had been pursued in such a manner and to such an ex- 
tent as to be no longer compatible with the candidate's function 
as a teacher of science. This applies equally to all parties." There 
is one restriction even upon the neutrality of the state toward the 
results of research. Professor Paulsen explains why it is "neces- 
sary to place one restriction, if not upon the thinker, at least upon 
the teacher appointed by the state and supported from the funds 
of the people" : 

"A person who . . . assumes a hostile attitude towards the state 
as the historically developed institution of the people, aiming at its dis- 
memberment and destruction and not at its preservation and improvement, 
cannot as an honest man accept an office and a commission from the hands 
of the people or the state. . . . 



268 FREEDOM OF TEACHING 

"Or suppose that a man had been convinced by his own reflections upon 
the nature of the state or by the eloquence of a Tolstoi, that the state as 
an institution of force was an evil, and ought to be destroyed. That, 
too, would unfit him for the office of a teacher of political science just as 
it would unfit a person to be a teacher of law if he looked upon the posi- 
tive law as a foolish burden and a plague — always provided at least that 
the state is not inclined to abrogate itself and the law in case theory 
demands it. The teacher will, therefore, have to recognize that there is 
a reason in these things, and it will be his first task to see and to show 
the reason that is in them. Then he may also point out the distance 
between the reality and the ideal, and, if he can, the way to approximatQ 
the ideal. The man, however, who can find absolutely no reason in the 
state and in law, who, as a theoretical anarchist, denies the necessity of 
a state and a legal order, having the power to compel, not only for an 
ideal dream-world, but for this work-a-day world, may try to prove his 
theory by means of as many good arguments as he can, but he has no call 
to teach the political sciences at a state institution. And no state would 
be willing to appoint him to such an office or be able to tolerate him in it, 
however thoroughly he may be convinced of his vocation for it. . . . 

"From this standpoint we may also judge of the state's attitude toward 
the academic presentation of the political and social sciences in accordance 
with the principles of the social-democracy. So long as the party advo- 
cates a theory hostile in principle to the state as such, . . . hostile 
to this particular state and to the state in general, it cannot be permitted 
to teach the political sciences in state institutions. A state that will 
permit such theories to be taught, as 'the results of science,' in the lecture 
rooms of the universities established by it, and will allow the teachers of 
the political sciences employed by it to point out the worthlessness of the 
state as such, or of this particular state, as a scientifically proved fact, 
will be looked for in vain. ... 

"This, of course, does not mean that the state should absolutely sup- 
press all attempts to formulate such theories. Nor do I deny the need 
of a social-democratic party and of its criticism of existing political insti- 
tutions. Though it may often shoot far beyond the mark, it has given 
rise to wholesome reforms in our legal and social institutions. . . . All 
I assert is this: The state cannot hand over the business of teaching the 
science of the state to men who show no deeper appreciation of the inner 
necessity of historical products, and who have no more respect for estab- 



FREEDOM OF TEACiriNG 2G9 

lished institutions than the platforms, literature, and press of the social- 
democracy express. The state will permit such m.en to gain followers 
for their doctrines wherever they choose, but it cannot appoint them a^ 
the authorized leaders in the science of these things. 

"It is also to be added that so long as the social-democracy boasts of 
being a revolutionary party, expecting and aiming at the overthrow of 
the entire established political and legal order, no professor, be his chair 
what it will, can join this party without at the same time renouncing 
his office. . . . No state, be it republican or monarchial or what you 
please, will confer an office upon a man who declares it to be his political 
function to destroy its very foundation. To destroy its very foundation, 
mind you, not to reform and improve the state, for Avhich provision is 
made by the constitution itself. No one can be an officer of the state who 
seeks to destroy it. Not for a moment can we imagine that a social- 
democratic re]3ublic or whatever the state might call itself, would assume 
a different attitude in this respect. Indeed, it is to be presumed that it 
would go much farther and be forced to go much farther in watching 
those under suspicion and expelling its enemies than any one of the exist- 
ing states. The more firmly established a state is, the less sensitive it is 
to criticism; the weaker it is, the more anxious it will be to ward ofiE 
attacks and to suppress public criticism. And hence the freedom of teach- 
ing would be nowhere less assured than in a place where a new revolutionary 
government was compelled to defend itself against reactionary movements, 
where law and authority were insecure and depended wholly upon public 
opinion, the most uncertain thing in the world. . . . 

"The universities are and desire to remain non-political corporations. 
And they will be particularly sensitive on the question of propagandism 
for the social-demoeratic party because of the peculiar character of this 
party: it is, more than any other political party, a 'sect' with a 'doctrine' 
and 'correct tenets.' This fact was again brought out at the recent 
Liibeck convention: not only the member's political action, but even his 
literary and scientific work is subject to the approval and disapproval of 
the party. This follows necessarily^ from the fact that the party plat- 
form contains a dogmatic system, that there is 'scientific' socialism or 
socialistic science. There has never been 'scientific' liberalism or conserva- 
tism; these parties have no 'system,' but merely a practical political pro- 
gram. The social-democracy aims to be more than a political party; it has 
a doctrina fidei to which it binds its members or attempts to bind them. 



270 FREEDOM OF LEARNING 

. . . When the social-democracy ceases to be a sect with an iron-clad 
doctrine, when it stops prating about the revolution or playing upon the 
double meaning of the word, when it assumes the attitude of a reform 
party and aims to reform existing institutions by bringing about complete 
equality before the law and by elevating the moral and intellectual con- 
ditions of the lower classes, then it will no longer he possible to justify 
the state in treating this party differently from the others." 

Freedom of learning is a correlate of freedom of teaching in the 
German university. There, indeed, Urnfreiheit is even more abso- 
lute than lehrfreiheit. Of course, the German faith and practice 
in this matter does not apply precisely to the undergraduate work 
of the American college. The leader is referred to Paulsen's ex- 
cellent chapter on the subject. I quote a few sentences to indicate 
the attitude of the most genuine spirit of freedom of teaching 
toward freedom of learning: 

"The liberty to pass freely from one institution to another, to which 
our university system owes so much, makes a rigid regulation of the 
course impossible; no one will wish to hinder a student who has the 
opportunity of hearing an excellent instructor, from taking a course of 
lectures under him somewhat before the time and postponing to do so, 
another course for another university. . . . The individual must be 
left to find his own way, though this does not mean that he should not 
seek private advice; it rather presupposes it. . . . If we really wish 
to maintain our freedom of learning, if we do not desire a system of uni- 
versity instruction modelled after that of the schools, we must have the 
courage to desire a thoroughgoing freedom at the cost of any possible 
abuse of it. We must recognize that freedom without the possibility of 
its abuse is an impossibility. . . . The relation between teachers and 
students is now throughout so wholesome because it is a voluntary one; 
the student who cannot get what he wants in the lecture room remains 
away, a proceeding in all respects better for him and all concerned than 
a forced physical presence on his part. 

"And this also would have to be considered. If, instead of voluntary 
lectures and scientific exercises, obligatory exercises and compulsory work 
were substituted, would men who amount to anything as scientific investi- 
gators and writers be willing to become university instructors? Does any 



FREEDOM OF LEARNING 2T1 

one really believe that men like Wolf and Boeckh, Ranke and Waitz, 
Savigny and Gneist, J. Muller and Helmholtz would consent to spend their 
lives in setting tasks and correcting work for participants in compulsory 
exercises? What the elimination of such names from a university would 
mean need not be further discussed. If you turn the university into a 
school — well, then it ceases to be what it has been thus far: a place for 
scientific investigation; the distinguished scholars and investigators would 
retire to the Academy, and the same separation that now exists in France 
would come about here. . . . 

"The student ought to learn the difficult art of controlling himself, of 
working spontaneously, so to speak; and this cannot be acquired under 
compulsion. . . . The years at the university are the test which decides 
whether a young fellow has in him the making of a man who can guide 
and rule himself, and then also others. . . . Here a man who has too 
little to offer, either in the way of intellectual gifts or energy of will, 
makes a failure; which is not a loss for society, but rather a guarantee 
against intellectual and moral insufficiency. ... I am well aware- 
that by this process even young men, who, with proper care, would haver 
developed into very serviceable officials, come to grief and ruin. They rep« 
resent the price which we must pay for the school of freedom. It is costly, 
but eannot be had for less; the young must be exposed to such risks if 
we are to have men. The university is not a kindergarten. . . . Such 
is the attitude of the German university. And it is this very feature 
which, in later life, arouses the true man's gratitude that he was not led 
about by the hand like a schoolboy, but was allowed to find his own 
way. ... 

"Schleiermacher in his Gelegentliche Gedanken declares that learning is 
not the real purpose of the university, but the purpose is 'to arouse, if 
possible, an entirely new life, a higher, truly scientific spirit in the youths. 
But this cannot be done by compulsion; the attempt can only be made 
in the atmosphere of complete intellectual freedom.' . . . 

"A really typical example of a university course arranged with regard 
to pedagogical considerations is supplied by the French law faculties- 
There is a rigid curriculum in which the courses are prescribed for each 
year; there can be no chance of error in the choice of a teacher either, 
since there is always only one teacher for each subject; the instruction: 
must be in accordance with a program which the instructor formerly- 
received, complete, from the ministry of education, but which he must 



272 PEEEDOM OF LEAENING 

now submit to it for approval; attendance upon lectures and exercises is 
compulsory; an annual report is sent to the student's father; finally there 
is a graduated series of examinations, intimately connected with the 
several courses, . . . and in order to promotion to the next higher 
course they must be passed successfully. . . . And the result? 

"According to L. von Savigny's report, which no one who expects any- 
thing from examinations during each semester should fail to read, even 
the purely external results are far from satisfactory, . . . Owing to 
the frequency of the examinations and the little time lost by failures in 
any one of them (early opportunity for re-examination is allowed), failure 
to pass is not taken seriously, is not looked upon as a serious catastrophe, 
as with us, but only as requiring a longer term in a class. ... In 
Paris each professor is compelled to devote from 400 to 600 hours annually 
to examinations, 6000 examinations being given. I do not think we hav^ 
cause to look with envy upon such results. But the effects of the system 
extend even further. The purely scholastic character of the examinations 
exerts a reflex influence upon the instruction given and the character of 
the work done by the students. Independent work and thought is never 
achieved, scarcely aimed at; the object is to learn by rote with the exami- 
nations in view. Hence the schoolboy-like way of looking at things that 
characterizes the student to the end, appearing even in the work done for 
the doctorate; mere reproduction, without any real independence and pro- 
ductive power. . . . 

"The infallible system which makes all the students reasonable, indus- 
trious, and virtuous has not yet been invented; the German system of free- 
dom does not do it. But the systems of restraint, supervision, and exami- 
nations accomplish as little; even the most careful precautions are unavail- 
ing. On the contrary, it is a question whether the strongest and most 
eapable students who thrive under the free system, are not the very ones 
who would suffer under the system of restraint, and whether this latter 
would not be a worse injury than the former." 

It was the Englisliman Matthew Arnold who, after deliberate 
investigation, concluded: "The French university has no liberty, 
and the English universities have no science; the Grerman univer- 
sities have both.^^ 



A CRUCIAL TEST 273 

I add an observation which seems to me to be a peculiarly strik- 
ing illustration. It may be regarded as the "acid test" of the gen- 
uineness of any spirit of freedom of teaching on the part of the 
teachers. It deserves to be pondered in university circles in iimer- 
Ica : 

In 1820 George Bancroft was the third American to receive the 
degree of doctor of philosophy from Geiman universities. In a 
statement written in 1871, he tells of his return to his native land 
and his immediate efforts to induce Harvard College to separate 
clearly its graduate courses, so as to begin the development of *^'^our 
colleges into universities." After telling of his failure in that 
attempt, he continues: "I then applied ... for leave to read 
lectures on History in the university. At Gottingen or at Berlin I 
had the right, after a few preliminary formalities, to deliver such 
a course . . . My request wes declined by my own alma mater." 
This occurred nearly a hundred years ago; since that time "univer- 
sities" have sprung up in every State of the Union, and some of 
them have grown on munificent resources to giant size, — and there 
has been much talk about freedom of teaching. Yet if another 
Bancroft, to-day, were to repeat his offer to teach voluntary hearers, 
as a private docent, it would be likewise disallowed. At Johns 
Hopkins University, in its early days, and at several other univer- 
sities, incipient attempts to allow private docents have been made, 
but with no permanent effect. The faculties of American univer- 
sities, I say, should ponder these facts. There is need for some 
searching of hearts. The facts are: In the German universities 
a large part of the professor^s remuneration comes from the fees 
of voluntary students, yet any young philosopliiae doctor mav secure 
the right of lecturing in the university simply by proving that he 
is competent. He receives no stipend from the university, but he 
may take from every professorial competitor what fees he is able to 
attract. That is freedom of teaching. The degree of the Germap 
university signifies Jcnowledge^ and the German professor is con^^ 



274 Ideals 

tent with testing to his satisfaction the candidate's knowledge, pro- 
vided he may assume from its having been sought in true universi- 
ties that a proper spirit and attitude accompany the scholarship. 
Except for the requirement that university degrees must be sought 
in uciversities, his professional code disdains jealousy and despises 
compulsion as to the times, places, or persons concerned in th« 
attainment of proficiency. Also, the same principles bestow upon 
the proficient freedom to teach. 

It need not be inferred that the difference in professional atti- 
tude and practice in the two countries is caused by great moral 
differences in their teachers as individuals. It is the consequence 
on the one side of a code of professional ethics which recognizes and 
enforces responsibility as well as privilege; and, on the other side, 
of an inchoate demand for privilege without clearly recognized 
responsibility. The personally characteristic impulses of a man 
living under the sway of a clear ethical code may be no more exalted 
than those of one not so influenced, yet his conduct will be more 
cimsistent. Nevertheless, it must be understood that virtue is 
not abstract, but is realized or consists in right conduct, and that 
such conduct (unless it be the sham of hypocrisy) tends to realize 
the steadfast disposition which constitutes the virtue. He that 
doeth shall know of the doctrine. 

Ideals 

To have ideals is simply to have an unclouded mind — to know 
what you desire and are striving for. More harm than good is 
likely to come from unenlightened effort. Effort without ideals is 
anarchy: effort under false ideals is thraldom. The ideals thai 
should be upheld and enforced by university faculties need not be 
formulated with extensive definiteness, but their central principles 
should be clear and luminous. Priuci-Dles abide ; annlications vary 
infinitely. It is a spirit and attitude, not a dogma that is needed. 

The genuine principles may be viewed from many different ap- 



Ideals 275 

proaches, but all true ways of access will conversfe. Eight state- 
ments from different standpoints, upon anal5^sis, will be seento 
involve or to imply each the others if they are fundamental, and, 
in any case, to harmonize with and reinforce each other. Let us 
consider one statement which is fundamental, and therefore far 
more comprehensive in its implications than it may seem to the 
thoughtless or the inexperienced. President Eliot has declared that 
there are three essential characteristics of a true university : Free- 
dom in the choice of studies ; opportunity to win distinction in spe- 
cial lines of study; a discipline which imposes on each individual 
the responsibility for forming his own habits and guiding his own 
conduct. 

The institutions which have erred least from the requirements 
thus stated are recognized instinctively as the noblest and soundest 
of our universities. It was due to its foundation upon and living 
loj^ally to precisely those principles that the pecuniarily poorest 
of the leading universities in this country has been one of the great- 
est and most influential. The principles of President Eliof s 
ideal were — precisely and expressly — ^the principles avowed for and 
by the University of Virginia at its foundation. "For the first 
fifty years of its history/' says Pl^esident Pritchett, "the University 
of Virginia was conducted in a larger spirit of freedom, and Jiad 
about it more of the atmosphere of a true university than any 

other institution in this country.^' Speaking again of the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, in another report, he says : 

"Beautiful housing had b^en but one of Jefferson's cares. For the pro- 
fessors he had ransacked the United States and Europe. . . . Univer- 
sity methods were in practice from the day of opening [March 7, 1825], 
teachers and students working together with a minimum of reliance on 
text-books or other formal aids, . . . There were no entrance require- 
ments, the period of study leading to a degree was undetermined. The 
students were not divided into classes. But although anybody could ma- 
triculate, once inside, the matriculant found examinations fixed and search- 
ing. . . . Rigorous tests preserved from prolonged residence those 



276* Ideals 

unable to profit, and protected the value of tlie degrees. This was in 
accordance with Jefferson's theory of remitting to the individual the chief 
care of his own interests. . . . The university always upheld rigidly 
the value of its degrees, and by means of the group system maintained 
balanced and harmonious training while allowing the widest election. . . . 
"The civil war found the university in great prosperity; 604 students 
were in residence in the winter of 1859-60. But in 1861 almost the entire 
student body enlisted, and three professors accepted commissions." 

In recent years the University of Virginia has established stand- 
ard entrance requirements and the ordinary '^'classes." The former 
is not repugnant to the fundamental principles we are con- 
sidering^ and it is an appropriate consequence of the systemization 
of the secondary schools. The latter is questionable. College 
"classes," as commonly administered, tend to a *^lock-step^ for indi- 
viduals of very different abilities and to a lowering of the degree 
toward the minimum of tolerance for residence during a set 
period of time. This question is considered directly on its merits 
in the next chapter, as is also, the matter of entrance requirements. 
President Pritchett remarks that, "only the high intellectual tone 
generally prevalent at Charlottesville prevented [the absence of 
entrance requirements! from lowering the distinctly university 
atmosphere." Of course, that is the only explanation; but a simi- 
lar tone would have the same effect always and anywhere else. 

The history of the University of Virginia has strongly corrobo- 
rated the philosophical grounds for its ideals. Its principles, whicb 
were unique in 1825,* have been adopted in form, if not in spirit, 

*In order that credit be given where credit is due, it should be remem- 
bered that at the reformation of the College of William and Mary in 
1779, at least one of the principles which were realized in 1825 in the 
University of Virginia had been promulgated. But the credit for the 
action of the earlier college probably also belongs, as President Foster 
has shown, to Thomas Jefferson. William and Mary's action is described 
by President Madison in a letter dated August 27, 1780, quoted by Foster 
in his book, Administration of the College Curriculum: "The Doors of 
ye University are open to all, nor is even a knowledge in ye ant. Lan- 
guages a previous Requisite for Entrance. The Students have ye liberty 



Ideals ' 277 

by nearly all our universities. Harvard adopted them more than 
forty years ago, and President Eliot championed them as essential 
for a true university. Professor Archibald Gary Coolidpje of Har- 
vard University, speaking in Virginia in 1905 said : 

"At the present day what is termed the elective system of studies has 
found its way in one form or another into most of our higher institutions 
of learning. . . . When eighty years ago the University of Virginia 
was founded on a basis broader than that of any other college in the 
country, the elective system, which you alone at that early day dared to 
introduce, was, indeed, a startling innovation, one that long could find but 
few imitators. . . . Time has vindicated your wisdom and the fore- 
sight of your founder. The principle for which you contended has become 
a common heritage. You have shown that a broad road to knowledge 
need not be an easy one, for you have kept your standards so high that 
you have discouraged many an applicant who would gladly have won your 
degree if it could have been obtained at any other cost than that of long 
and patient toil. All this we of the sister universities appreciate — per- 
haps not without jealousy. 

"There is, moreover, another principle which we who live at a distance 
associate with the University of Virginia. High as she has put knowledge 
as her ideal, she has put something else higher still. She has recognized 
from the beginning that her institution which has charge of youth, to mold 
them for after-life, fulfills but a part of its duty if it ministers merely 
to their intellects. The distinguishing mark of its graduates should be 
not only learning, but character. . . . This truth, which in our mod- 



of attending whom they please, and in what order they please, or all ye 
diffr. Lectures in a term if they think proper. The time of taking Degrees 
was formerly ye same as in Cambridge, but now depends upon ye Qualifi- 
cations of ye candidate. He has a certain course pointed out for his first 
Degree, and also for ye next. When Master of Either, ye Degree is con- 
ferred." This statement, says President Foster, "strikes like a thunder- 
bolt into the petrified old-Avorld college customs that had up to this time 
shackled the college curriculum of the new world. . . . Although this 
new plan of studies for the College of William and Mary was not the 
Elective System as we now understand it, — since certain courses were 
pointed out for certain degrees, — yet the gates of the college were opened 
wide; and while the Revolutionary forces were achieving political freedom 
on the battlefield, academic freedom was achieved in the field of higher 
education." 



278 Ideals 

ern striving for efiiciency sometimes appears to be dropping into the baek- 
gTound, has never been forgotten here. Who is there in the United States 
who knows of the University of Virginia and does not think of her as 
the home of the honor system, of the priceless possession of which others 
may well be envious? To you it seems as natural as the air you breathe. 
To those less fortunate in this respect it remains, even if different condi- 
tions make it diflQcult of attainment, an ideal, an encouragement towards 
a better state of things in the future. This is well, for never in our 
history has there been a greater need of a steadfast maintenance of the 
principles of character for which you have stood with such noble results. 
In this day of triumprant materialism, w^hen faiths are crumbling and 
nothing goes unquestioned, when success at any price is the one achieve- 
ment that seems to appeal to a large portion of the community, when 
consciences are weakened by casuistry, when simplicity is looked upon as 
foolishness, and when the almighty dollar tends openly or insidiously to 
enslave us all, may the University of Virginia with an ever enlarged 
sphere of influence stand as she always has stood for the principle of the 
Scotch poet, 'The man's the gold for all that.' " 

Much confusion of ideas and purposes has arisen amid the 
expanding and diversifying enterprises of the modern university. 
In reaching out to increase and multiply its services in so many 
new spheres^ some essential things are frequently lost sight of. 
In so far as this occurs, the institution falls into many disorders, 
consequent upon the loss of vision and in proportion to the degree 
of blindness with which its rulers are stricken. There has never 
heretofore been a time when there was such urgent need for men 
who might be called statesmen-educators, — men who combine with 
expert knowledge of education both as a process and as a result, the 
philosophical powers of mind that enable one to comprehend the 
principles of organization and administration, and to keep in view, 
amid an infinite variety of details, those things which are essential. 
Ability of this kind seems to be either peculiarly rare in America, 
or men having such ability are, with us, rarely selected as leaders. 



Fundamental Principles 279 

The Final Report of the Royal Commission on Universit}^ Educa- 
tion in London* (dated March 27, 1913, but not obtainable until 
some months later) is a work that should be read in this country 
by all who are charged with responsibility concerning the govern- 
ment of universities. The particular problems dealt with have, in- 
deed, little direct bearing upon conditions extant in this country; 
but if superficial opportunists could hold themselves down to a 
perusal of that painstaking work, they might be impressed by the 
efficacy and utility of fundamental principles in guiding those 
enlightened by them through mazes of confusing details and con- 
flicting claims. ISTowhere else in the world is presented so diffi- 
cult and complex a problem concerning educational affairs, as 
that of rightly organizing the University of London with its con- 
stituent colleges and legion of allied institutions. Some passages 
from the admirable report by the commissioners will indicate 
several essential principles anplicable always and everywhere. 

"T/i-e 'Nature and Work of the University 
"We have described what appear to us to be the main defects in the 
present organisation of the University, and we think it must be clear 
from what we have said that the University cannot work well so long 
as the present relations of the Internal and External sides continue as 
they are now. . . . Experience has shown that the Gresham Commis- 
sion were mistaken in believing it was in any way possible to organise 
a homogeneous university by connecting a number of financially and 
educationally independent institutions with a central degree-giving body 
endowed with the limited power and influence possessed by such a univer- 
sity as they proposed. . 

"Much that is defective in the present organisation of the University 
of London can be traced ultimately to confusion of thought about what 
things are essential to university education and what things are non- 
essential. For example, whatever importance may be attached to exam- 
inations, an examining board can never constitute a university; and, 
again, technical instruction and advanced courses of study may be multi- 



*Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office; to be purchased directly, 
or from the agencies in the United States and abroad of T. Fisher Unwin, 
London, W. C, price 2 shillings. 



280 Essentials of U:n"iversity Education 

plied indefinitely without providing university education. Of course, any 
educational institution may be called a university ; but, as Dr. Rashdall 
says, 'to degrade the name of a University, is to degrade our highest 
educational ideal.' We do not mean, however, that what we call non- 
essential things ought not to be provided, but only that they can be 
done without a university, although some of them can be better done by a 
university and in as close connexion as possible with the work which 
only a university can do. The history of the rapid growth of university 
institutions in this country during the last thirty years would no doubt 
explain much of the confusion of thought to which we have referred, 
but a large part of it is due to the history of the University of London 
itself. . . . The demand for higher technical instruction made itself 
felt throughout the Western world in the second half of the nineteenth 
century, when the modern universities of this country were coming into 
existence. It is possible that if the organisation of secondary schools 
in England had been more advanced, and if there had been, as there 
was in Germany, a large number of universities with a settled scope 
and policy, the demand might have been met here as it was in Germany,, 
by institutions distinct from the universities. . . . Perhaps it is yet 
to be proved whether the definite professional outlook of some of the 
modern English universities is consistent with the wide intellectual train- 
ing which university education has always been understood to imply. 
We have no doubt, however, that any branch of knowledge which is suflS- 
ciently developed and systematised to be capable of scientific treatment 
may be taught and studied in such a way as to form part of a university 
education. The differentiae of university education do not consist in the 
nature of the particular subjects studied, or in their difficulty or abstruse- 
ness, but rather in the nature and aim of the students' work, and in the 
conditions under which it is done. 

"The Essentials of University Education 

"In the first place, it is essential that the regular students of the 
University should be able to work in intimate and constant association, 
with their fellow students, not only of the same but of different Faculties, 
and also in close contact with their teachers. The University should be 
organised on this basis, and should regard it as the ordinary and normal 
state of things. This is impossible, however, when any considerable pro- 
portion of the students are not fitted by their previous training to receive 
a university education, and therefore do not and cannot take their place 
in the common life of the university as a community of teachers and 



Essentials of University Education 281 

students, but, as far as their intellectual education is concerned, continue 
in a state of pupilage, and receive instruction of much the same kind 
as at a school, though under conditions of greater individual free- 
dom. . . . It is essential that the students and teachers should be 
brought together in living intercourse in the daily work of the Univer- 
sity. From the time the undergraduate enters the University he should 
find himself a member of a community in which he has his part to play. 
The teaching and learning, should be combined through the active and per- 
sonal co-operation of teachers and students. . . . 

"The main business of a university is the training of its undergrad- 
uates, and it is clear that university study will be best pursued if the 
students, or at any rate a large proportion of them, are of an age when 
fresh intellectual impressions and habits of mind are easily formed, 
and if their main purpose during the period of their student life is the 
training which they hope to receive from the university. A university 
education is most effective when it is given before the struggles and 
preoccupations of life in the world have begun. It is a training which 
ought to make great demands both upon the intellectual energy and 
upon the time of the student; on his energy, because he is learning 
the methods of independent work carried on in an inquiring spirit; on 
his time, because mental habits cannot be formed rapidly, nor if the 
mind is distracted by other cares and interests, and because, if he is to 
get more from the instruction of the class-room or laboratory than 
notes in preparation for an examination, a considerable amount of leisure 
is essential for independent reading, for common life with fellow students 
and teachers, and above all for the reflective thought necessarj'^ to the 
rather slow process of assimilation. 

"In the second place, the work in a university by teachers and students 
should differ in its nature and aim both from the work of a secondary 
school and from that of a technical or a purely professional school. In the 
secondary school it is expected that a knowledge of many things should 
be acquired while the mind is specially receptive, and during this stage 
of education definite tasks are rightly prescribed. But even more im- 
portant than knowledge is the moral and mental training needed for 
later success in study or in life, which the pupils gain by the orderly 
exercise of all their activities demanded in a well arranged school. 
In the technical or professional school the theoretical teaching is so 
closely connected with the requirements of the art to be acquired, or the 
profession or calling for which the pupil desires to prepare himself, 



282 University Teaching 

that it is limited and directed largely to the application of ascertained 
facts to practical purposes, or it may be to the preparation for a quali- 
fying examination. 

"In a university the aim is different, and the whole organization ought 
to be adapted to the attainment of the end in view. Knowledge is, of 
course, the foundation and the medium of all intellectual education, but 
in a university knowledge should be pursued not merely for the sake of 
the information to be acquired, but for its own extension and always with 
reference to the attainment of truth. This alters the whole attitude of the 
mind. Scientific thought becomes a habit, and almost incidentally in- 
tellectual power is developed. Modern universities are called into exist- 
ence principally by the social need for professional training, and probably 
most of the students enter the University with a purely utilitarian object; 
but they should find themselves in a community of workers, devoted 
to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and tenacious of this ideal 
against all external pressure of material and social advantages. Academic 
instruction is primarily purely theoretical and scientific, and yet it is 
not only the best training for the conduct of life, but also the best, if 
not the necessary introduction to all those professions and callings of 
which it may be said that practice and progress are closely connected 
and constantly reacting on each other. Its effect in relation to the pro- 
fession or calling which the student has in view is that he brings to it 
not only the discipline, training, knowledge, and resourcefulness he has 
acquired, but also the intellectual mastery of the principles involved which 
enables him throughout his life to appreciate and apply all advances in 
science that bear upon it. 

"The following description of university teaching given by the in- 
spectors of the Board of Education in a Report of 1910 appears to us 
to agree in substance with what we have said, and in some respects to 
express our meaning in greater detail and completeness : 

" 'We may assume,' they say, 'that university teaching is teaching 
suited to adults; that it is scientific, detached, and impartial 
in character; that it aims not so much at filling the mind of the 
student with facts or theories as at calling forth his own individ- 
uality, and stimulating him to mental effort; that it accustoms him 
to the critical study of the leading authorities, with, perhaps, 
occasional references to first-hand sources of information; and 
that it implants in his mind a standard of thoroughness, and gives 
him a sense of the difficulty as well as of the value of truth. 



TEAcriiNG AND Eesearch 283 

The student so trained learns to distinguish between what may 
fairly be called matter of fact, and what is certainly mere matter of 
opinion, between the white light and the coloured. He becomes 
accustomed to distinguish issues, and to look at separate questions 
each on its own merits and without an eye to their bearing on some 
cherished theory. He learns to state fairly, and even sympatheti- 
cally, the position of those to whose practical conclusions he is most 
stoutly opposed. He becomes able to examine a suggested idea, and 
see what comes of it, before accepting it or rejecting it. Finally, 
without necessarily becoming an original student, he gains an 
insight into the conditions under which original research is carried 
on. He is able to weigh evidence, to follow and criticise argu- 
ment, and put his own value on authorities.' 

"In the third place, it is essential that the higher work of the University 
should be closely associated with the undergraduate work. Proposals 
which tend to their separation take two forms. On the one hand, it is 
proposed that the bulk of the undergraduates should be distributed over 
a large number of centres, most of which would be limited to instruction 
in one or two Faculties only, while the teaching of the University Pro- 
fessors in the more central colleges should be organized with primary 
reference to the needs of the post-graduate or advanced student, and 
should provide for undergraduates, if at all, only as a secondary and 
entirely subordinate consideration. On the other hand, there is the 
proposal of the Council for External Students, to which we have already 
referred, for the creation of a series of institutes for research and higher 
learning to which the best students would pass from the colleges and 
other institutions where they had received their undergraduate training. 
Neither of these proposals commends itself to us as a desirable policy, 
and both of them appear to involve a half-conscious admission that the 
great majority of the students who at present take the bachelor's degree 
of London University do not receive a university education at all. But 
this is the greatest evil which results from the present organization of the 
University, and the one which it is most important to remove in the 
interests of higher education in London. 

"No one suggests that research should be divorced from teaching, but 
for various reasons proposals are made for organizing the higher and 
more advanced work of the University separately from the undergraduate 
work in a way which must tend in this direction. We agree with the 
view expressed in the Report of the Professorial Board of University 



284 Teaching and Eesearch 

College that 'any hard and fast line between undergraduate and post- 
graduate work must be artificial, must be to the disadvantage of the 
undergraduate, and must tend to diminish the supply of students who 
undertake post-graduate and research work.' Even in those cases where 
it is necessary to provide for research departments which, because of 
their specialised work, are unsuited for the admission of undergraduates, 
they will be stronger and more effective if they are in close proximity 
to departments where undergraduate work is done, 

"Teaching will, of course, predominate in the earlier work, and research 
will predominate in the advanced work ; but it is in the best interests of the 
University that the most distinguished of its professors should take part 
in the teaching of the undergraduates from the beginning of their univer- 
sity career. It is only by coming into contact with the junior students that 
a teacher can direct their minds to his own conception of his subject, 
and train them in his own methods, and hence obtain the double advan- 
tage of selecting the best men for research, and getting the best work 
out of them. Again, it is the personal influence of the man doing 
original work in this subject which inspires belief in it, awakens enthu- 
siasm, gains disciples. His personality is the selective power by which 
those who are fittest for his special work are voluntarily enlisted in its 
service, and his individual influence is reproduced and extended by the 
spirit which actuates his staff. Neither is it the few alone who gain; 
all honest students gain inestimably from association with teachers who 
show them something of the working of the thought of independent and 
original minds. 'Anyone,' says Helmholtz, 'who has once come into contact 
with one or more men of the first rank must have had his whole mental 
standard altered for the rest of his life.' Lectures have not lost their use, 
and books can never fully take the place of the living spoken word. 
Still less can they take the place of the more intimate teaching in labora- 
tory and seminar, which ought not to be beyond the range of the ordinary 
course of a university education, and in which the student learns, not 
only conclusions and the reasons supporting them, all of which he might 
get from books, but the actual process of developing thought, the working 
of a highly trained and original mind. 

"If it is thus to be desired that the highest university teachers should 
take their part in undergraduate work, and that their spirit should 
dominate it all, it follows for the same reasons that they should not be 
deprived of the best of their students when they reach the stage of post- 
graduate work. This work should not be separated from the rest of the 



Teaching and Eesearch 285 

work of the University, and conducted by different teachers in separate 
institutions. As far as the teacher is concerned it is necessry that he 
should have post-graduate students under him. He must be doing original 
work himself, and he often obtains material assistance from the co- 
operation of advanced students. Their very diflSculties are full of sugges- 
tion, and their faith and enthusiasm are a perennial source of refreshment 
and strength. He escapes the flagging spirit and the moods of lethargy 
which are apt to overtake the solitary worker. There can be no question 
of a higher elass of teachers than the professors of the University, or the 
whoje position of the University will be degraded. On the other hand, 
a university teacher of the highest rank will naturally desire to have 
as his post-graduate students those students whom he has already 
begun to train in his own methods, though his laboratory or seminar will, 
of course, be open to students who come from other universities, and to 
some perhaps who come from no universities at all, as well as to some 
who come from other teachers of the University of London. There must 
be a great deal of give and take, and students may often gain by studying 
under more than one teacher of the same subject; but that is an entirely 
different thing from separating the higher work from the lower. We 
do not think it would be possible to get the best men for University 
Professorships if they were in any way restricted from doing the highest 
work, or prevented from spreading their net wide to catch the best stu- 
dents. 

"It is also a great disadvantage to the undergraduate students of the 
University that post-graduate students should be removed to separate 
institutions. They ought to be in constant contact with those who 
are doing more advanced work then themselves, and who are not too far 
beyond them, but stimulate and encourage them by the familiar presence 
of an attainable ideal. 

"Then, again, there is the influence of the University as a whole upon 
all departments of work within it. The advance of knowledge is not along 
single lines of special research alone. The sciences have all been developed 
out of the ordinary knowledge of common experience by the gradual 
substitution of completeness and accuracy for vagueness. Research is 
often spoken of as if all of it was the highest kind of work, and it is 
often assumed that a student's education has reached its goal when he 
is said to be doing original research, and that if he attains to this it does 
not matter what his previous training has been. But, in fact, there are 
all degrees of value in research, and much, that is diginfied by the name, 
however laborious and praiseworthy it may be, is directed to narrow 



286 Teaching and Kesearch 

issues and problems of quite secondary importance because the student 
lacks a broad and liberal education and a wider point of view. Even 
men of great eminence in their own department of knowledge have been 
known to apply the conceptions which are valid within the range of their 
particular science to problems which can never be solved by means of 
them. All the sciences are fragmentary when viewed in relation to the 
whole range of experience. They pass over into each other; they require 
to be supplemented, corrected, extended, even their most fundamental pre- 
suppositions may have to be reconsidered in the light of discoveries in other 
fields of investigation, and as the result of the re-thinking and re-conceiv- 
ing of existing knowledge. It is impossible for any but the greatest minds 
to gain mastery over more than a small part of human knowledge; but in 
addition to the mastery of a part it is possible to acquire a general con- 
ception of the whole, a sympathetic understanding of the ideas which 
guide the work of the other men, an almost instinctive sense of the bearing 
of other branches of knowledge on one's own special work, and a just 
appreciation of its possibilities and limitations. All these ends are best 
achieved by a University which takes the whole realm of human thought 
and knowledge as its own, associates its teachers and students together 
as closely as the conditions of their work will allow, and so forms a 
community with one spirit and one aim, which in course of time will 
develop an individual character and create traditions that will affect the 
minds of all who come within its influence. . . . 

"In a great city like London, we believe there is room, as there is 
in Berlin and Leipzig, for important independent research institutes 
which may incidentally offer advanced students of the London and other 
Universities opportunities for making investigations of a special kind; 
but institutes of this type, however necessary in themselves, do not, 
and in our view should not, form a part of the university organization. 
. . . It is obvious that the University can exercise no influence over the 
conduct of a purely research centre such as the Lister Institute, or over 
a special professional school like that of the Pharmaceutical Society, 
both independent in every real sense of the University, and with purposes 
of their own which are not university purposes. We trust that students 
or graduates of the University may be found within their walls, but 
they will reap no advantage from a formal connexion of the institutions 
with the University. We believe that what the University requires from 
institutions such as those named, is the same kind of convenience of access 
and general co-operation in the interests of learning that it looks for 



University Press 287 

from the national museums, or the collections of learned societies. Formal 
bonds of connexion would do nothing to assist the teachers and students of 
the University in making the full use they will and ought to make of the 
unrivalled opportunities for special study these institutions aflford. 

"On the other hand, we are strongly of the opinion that provision 
should be made by the University itself for the publication of the investi- 
gations which are carried out under its auspices by its teachers and its 
senior students. The benefit which a university can confer on the world 
of learning depends largely upon the influence that it has upon other 
universities and learned bodies. Shorter scientific contributions are per- 
haps best made known by publication in the recognised periodicals devoted 
to the subjects to which they relate, but the publication of longer original 
works cannot be made upon a commercial basis, and unless a university 
can assist its investigators by bringing their labors to the notice of other 
workers in the same field, not only will its own teachers and students be 
discouraged, but the advance of knowledge, which it is one of the chief 
purposes of a university to achieve, will be delayed because other workers 
will be ignorant of what has already been done or attempted. The 
establishment of a University Press under the full control of the Univer- 
sity itself is therefore, in our opinion, an essential function of the Univer- 
sity. . . . 

"Technology 

"There is nothing in the functions of a university as we have described 
them which ought to exclude technological instruction; but it must not 
be of a narrow utilitarian kind. If only those technoligical problems were 
studied which appeared likely to involve an immediate financial or material 
advantage, the point of view from which the inquiry, however recondite, 
was made would destroy the university spirit, and would not in fact be 
likely to open up the path to their solution. The difficulties that present 
themselves to manufacturers or merchants seldom afford an indication 
of the true nature of the problems to be solved. They are generally 
secondary in their nature, and a direct attack on them is likely to be as 
empirical as the symptomatic treatment of disease. It is the recognition 
of this truth which has led to the paradoxical assertion that the value 
of any study varies inversely with its usefulness; but in fact the value 
of a particular study arises not out of the matter which is treated, but out 
of the manner in which it is handled. Even from the point of view of 
technology we think Sir Water Raleigh is right when he says in his Ad- 
dress on the Meaning of a University: 'The standard of utility is a false 



288 Technology 

and mischievous standard, invented by short-sighted greed, and certain, if 
it is accepted, to paralyse and kill the University that accepts it. It 
cultivates the branches for profit, and neglects the root. You cannot 
apply the test of utility to knowledge that is living and growing. The 
use of knowledge is often the application to practical ends of knowledge 
that has ceased to grow. It is the timber, not the growing tree, which 
serves for ships. Some of the conclusions of scientific study can be 
utilised, but who shall say which of them? How can we be free to ask 
questions of the world, if we are told that we must ask no question the 
answer of which is not certain to be immediately profitable to us? We 
ask the question because we do not know the answer. The answer, if we 
are so fortunate as to find it, may be disconcerting and strange. Then 
we must ask more questions.' This view of the attitude which a univer- 
sity should assume towards utility does not prevent it from being 
useful to the industries, indeed it will be more useful to them if this 
is its spirit than if it merely thinks of those strictly trade purposes 
which it is the necessary and useful end of polytechnics and technical 
institutes to promote. . . . 

"Both the history of educational organization and a right view of the 
methods of university work appear to us to justify the inclusion of pro- 
fessionel and technological studies within the University; and this being 
so, it is neither possible nor desirable to withhold the advantage of the 
highly specialized work being done in the University laboratories and 
class-rooms from those already engaged in a profession or calling, who 
need to supplement their knowledge in particular directions. Although 
it may be true that the first and most urgent call upon the University 
is that made by its regular students, it could not hope to retain the 
sympathy and support of the community to which it must look for ma- 
terial a« well as moral assistance, if it refused help and guidance to men 
and women who, though the days of regular study were past, wished 
to keep abreast with the demands made upon them by their professions. 
A university in a great center of population must be prepared to provide 
advanced instruction of specialised kind for all classes of the community 
who are willing to receive it. A great deal of this work must be done 
in the evening, and for this purpose the great day colleges of the 
University should be used. . . . 



DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 289 

"Degrees and Examinations 

"The power of granting degrees is one of the chief characteristics of all 
universities, although it is not the real end of their existence. The great 
majority of the students enter the university only for a few years, and 
graduation is for them the culmination of their university career. In 
earlier times the students of a Faculty were apprentices to a profession, 
and when they became masters they entered the rank of teachers and were 
required to teach for a time. This rarely happens now; the teachers are 
a specially appointed class, and the bulk of the students leave the univer- 
sity immediately after graduation. The university fulfils its end for the 
nation and the world partly by the advancement of science and learning, 
but partly also by sending out into many of the different paths of life a 
constant stream of men and women who have been trained by its teaching 
and influenced by its life. 

"The object of going to a university iS; or ought to be, to obtain a 
university education; and the degree ought to signify that this end has 
been attained. It is required for practical purposes as the sign and guar- 
antee of a university education. At the present day the pass degree 
is the public certificate of the university that the student has complied 
with such conditions as may be prescribed with regard to residence, in- 
struction and course of study, and has satisfied the tests which the univer- 
sity imposes in order to ascertain that he has profited to a reasonable 
extent by the opportunity he has had. The honours degrees certify that he 
has acquitted himself with greater or less distinction, and the higher 
degrees that he has pursued a further course of study and satisfied addi- 
tional tests. Degrees, however, are not only certificates, they are also 
distinctions; and the hope of academic distinction excites emulation and 
rivalry which, although not the highest motives, are powerful incentives 
to sustained effort and self-denying exertion not easily dispensed with. 

"It is obvious that the tests imposed ought to be designed for the 
purpose of affording sufficient evidence that the object has been attained 
which is certified by the degree. Two things, then, must be kept in view 
in fix:ing what the tests should be. First, they should be fair test« affording 
sufficient evidence of what they are intended to prove; and, secondly, 
they should not interfere with or injuriously affect, but should, if possi- 
ble, assist the education which it is the real end of the university to give. 
In English universities the main test employed is that of examination. 
We must therefore consider the question how far that test affords suffi- 
cient evidence of a university education ( 1 ) when conducted solely by 



290 DEGREES AND EXAMII^ATIOXS 

external examiners^, and (2), when conducted largely by the teachers of the 
students examined; and how far in each case it is injurious to the real 
education of the student or can be made to assist its ends. 

"On the External side of the University of London, the only test imposed 
is that of examination, and the only condition for securing the education 
of the student is the lapse of time between the examinations, during 
which he may apply himself to study on the lines of prescribed syllabus, 
with or without instruction. Such examinations are necessarily con- 
ducted by examiners who, except by accident, have had nothing to do 
with the instruction of the candidates, and the questions must be so 
framed as to be fair to candidates who have been entirely dependent 
upon private study. What, then, does the examination test? All that 
IS provided is a syllabus, and all that the examination can profess to 
test is a knowledge, at the time of the examinatioon, of the subjects 
prescribed by the syllabus, because the candidate may get his knowledge 
in any way he likes. He may work hard and well, and he may have the 
best instruction, but the test of the examination affords no sufficient 
evidence of this. As far as it tests his knowledge or information alone, 
it can obtain evidence only of memory, and not even of lasting memory, 
because, in the case of some subjects at any rate, cramming is the most 
successful way of preparing for the test, and it is notorious that a good 
coach can enable a candidate even to dispense with cramming more than 
fragments of a subject prescribed. . . . We do not suggest that the 
examinations are easy to pass; the large percentage of failures is sufficient 
evidence that they are not. But the large number of failures also proves 
that a wide syllabus of prescribed subjects, with an External examination 
as the test for the information acquired, inevitably tends to uneducational 
methods of work, and, that far too many of the candidates are only 
'having a shot at it,' because there is a fair chance of scraping through 
a rather indiscriminating test with a minimum amount of knowledge 
and a turn of good luck. It is not an answer to say, as one witness said, 
that the intellect is strengthened by overcoming difficulties; that if a 
man has the resolution and strength of purpose to attain a standard 
of knowledge by himself, equal to that attained by another man with 
assistance, the former is the stronger man; that if he has mastered 
great books by the greatest men he will have come into communication 
with bigger minds than any who are likely to be his teachers, and that his 
teachers can do him good only by assisting him more readily to come 
into communication with those bigger minds. Even then we think the 



DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 291 

intellectual cultivation is likely to be one-sided and defective; but there 
is a fallacy in the assumption that self -education is achieved by any but 
the very exceptional man, or is induced by the examination. No doubt 
the degree is an incentive to work, and there are very few who can 
dispense with some incentive, but the External examination does not 
test the quality of the work. It can be more effectively and more easily 
prepared for by means that are not really educational. It is in spite of, 
and not by means of, the so-called principle of guidance by test, if the 
great majority of the candidates do not belong to the class which Newman 
describes as 'those earnest but ill-used persons, who are forced to load 
their minds with a score of subjects against an examination, who have too 
much on their hands to indulge themselves in thinking or investigation, 
who devour premiss and conclusion together with indiscriminate greedi- 
ness, who hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstrations to 
memory, and who too often, as might be expected, when their period 
of education is passed, throw up all they have learned in disgust, having 
gained nothing really by their anxious labours, except perhaps the habit 
of application.' 

"Even in the case of a true university where the students have had the 
opportunity of obtaining a university education, a purely external examina- 
tion conducted by examiners who have nothing to gO' upon but the syllabus 
prescribed for the course of instruction, can afford evidence of nothing 
more than we have already described. But the failure will be greater; 
because the object is not to test the knowledge of candidates at the time 
of the examination, but whether students have profited by the opportunity 
they have had of obtaining a university education. Hardly anyone now 
defends a purely external examination as a proper test of university 
teaching. The University of New Zealand, one of the last of the universi- 
ties to retain this form of examination, adopted under the influence of the 
old University of London, is at present agitating for reform. . . . 

"We are convinced that both a detailed syllabus and an external exami- 
nation are inconsistent with the true interests of university education, 
injurious to the student, degrading to the teachers, and ineffective for 
the attainment of the ends they are supposed to promote. The insistence 
on a system of external examinations is always based upon want of faith 
in the teachers. Even the so-called Internal examinations of the University 
of London are practically external, because of the large number of insti- 
tutions involved, and the demands of the common syllabus; and the 
syllabus is a device to maintain a standard among institutions which 



292 DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 

are not all of university rank. The effect upon the students and the 
teachers is disastrous. The students have the ordeal of the examination 
hanging over them and must prepare themselves for it or fail to get the 
degree. Thus the degree comes first and the education a bad second. They 
cannot help thinking of what will pay: they lose theoretic interest in the 
subjects of study, and with it the freedom, the thought, the reflection, the 
spirit of inquiry which are the atmosphere of university work. They 
cannot pursue knowledge both for its own sake and also for the sake 
of passing the test of an examination. And the teachers' powers are re- 
stricted by the syllabus; their freedom in dealing with their subject in 
their own way is limited, and they must either direct their teaching 
to preparation for an examination which is for each of them practically 
external, or else lose the interest and attention of their students. Indeed, 
the best teachers are apt to lose their students' attention either way, for 
if they teach unreservedly by the syllabus their own interest must flag, 
consequently that of their hearers also. We shall make recommendations 
which will dispense with the necessity of the syllabus, by ensuring the 
appointment of teachers who can be trusted with the charge of university 
education. Teachers who can be trusted with this far more important 
and responsible duty can also be trusted with the conduct of examinations, 
in so far as they are accepted as proper and necessary tests for the 
degrees of the University. But examinations, even when conducted by 
the teachers of the University, and based upon the instruction given by 
them, ought not to be the only tests for the degree. It is not right that 
the work of years should be juged by the answers given to examination 
papers in a few hours. . . . Due weight should be given to the 
whole record of the students' work in the University. If the academic 
freedom of the professors and the students is to be maintained — if scope 
for individual initiative is to be allowed to the professors, and the students 
are to profit to the full by their instruction — it is absolutely necessary 
that, subject to proper safeguards, the degrees of the University should 
practically be the certificates given by the professors themselves, and that 
the students should have entire confidence that they may trust their 
academic fate to honest work under their instruction and direction. 

"We have described in brief the things which, in our opinion, a univer- 
sity must do — the things which it is essential should be done if there 
is to be a university at all, and also those things which the University 
of London should do, if it is to serve adequately the needs of the great 



DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 293 

population at its doors. . . . For the moment . . . there is con- 
fusion in the public mind between a university education and a university 
degree. People believe that everyone who has the latter has in some 
way or other also had the former, and that the examinations that have 
been passed are a proof of it. . . . When an understanding has once 
been reached of what university teaching really is, and of what it can 
do for a man, we believe students, no matter how poor they may be, 
will refuse to be satisfied with anything less good than the best." 

The Commission's discussion of the "Working of the Present 
Organization of the University/' nianifests the same clear insights 
and firm grasp of essential principles. They see plainly, for 
instance, "why Boards of Studies and the common syllabus and ex- 
ternal examinations, whereby the various colleges have been linked 
together, have necessarily been "a bar to all real prosrress in the 
best institutions." "The external bond of a common examination, 
because it is common to all, must always be to some extent exter- 
nal to each and can never demand much more than the weakest 
institution can give.'' 

"The evidence shows that the Academic and the External Councils are 
dominated by incompatible ideals. The one side believes that training in 
a university under university teachers is an essential and by far the most 
important factor in a university education, while the other side believes 
that examinations based upon a syllabus afford 'a guidance by test,' which 
is an adequate means of ascertaining that a candidate has attined a stand- 
ard of knowledge entitling him to a university degree. We have been 
told that these different points of view are constantly opposed to each 
other in the Senate; that many matters thus become the subject of con- 
troversy which ought not to be so; that questions of grave importance 
have been decided by narrow majorities, and that policies which have been 
adopted and acted upon have been suddenly reversed. . . . 

"The curricula are prepared without any special regard to the particu- 
lar lines along which individual Schools are working, and are in all but 
form detailed syllabuses for examination. We have had evidence from a 
number of the professors that the common syllabus of instruction pre- 
scribed by the University hampers the best teaching. ... It appears, 
therefore, that this power over the curricula, by which the University 



294 DEGREES AND EXAMIXATIOXS 

can exercise a real influence on the Schools, though possibly beneficial 
hitherto in maintaining an average standard, especially for the weaker 
institutions, has been far from beneficial in its effect upon more ad- 
vanced work done in the stronger Schools. A far more important factor 
in maintaining a high standard of teaching is the character of the 
teachers themselves; but, with a few unimportant exceptions, the Univer- 
sity has no control over their appointment. . . . 

"We are convinced that it is not possible to organize a great university 
merely by giving a number of independent institutions with different aims 
and different standards a formal connexion with a central degree-giving 
body which has practically no control beyond the approval of syllabuses 
for degree courses, the recognition of individual teachers, and the conduct 
of degree examinations. We agree with Professor Hill, lately Vice- 
Chancellor of the University, that 'the power to control teaching is of 
more importance than the power to test it by granting degrees.' . . . 

"University students in the Polytechnics, no less than their teachers, 
are working in institutions intended for non-university purposes, with 
aims which have been described by the Charity Commissioners as 'the 
promotion of the industrial skill, general knowledge, health and well-being 
of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes', and which in 
the main, and for the majority of their students, are not those of a 
university. In these circumstances it is inevitable that the degree exami- 
nation rather than the course of instruction should appear the important 
matter, an attitude which is encouraged by the large proportion of the 
students who take the External examinations and attend only so much 
of the instruction as they think necessary. The passing of a university 
examination is no evidence that a student has received a university train- 
ing, yet the training is what the young men and women need who are 
destined to do work for which university graduates are required. The 
teacher who gives a part, or even the whole, of his time and energies 
merely to holding classes in preparation for university examinations is 
not on that account a university teacher; for the university teacher is 
not only concerned with imparting knowledge, but also with training 
the minds of his students, and inducing a critical and inquiring temper. 
The student may acquire much knowledge from his teacher; but if that 
is all he acquires he will not have had a university training, and if that 
is all his teacher can give he is not a true university teacher. The 
university teacher should be chosen because his powers are of the kind 
to fit him for university work; in so far as he is well fitted to do that 



POLYTECHNICS 295 

work, he is not the kind of teacher that is best suited for the major 
part of the work to be done in Polytechnics. One machine cannot satis- 
factorily produce simultaneously two such different articles as the skilled 
craftsman or artisan and the trained university student. If the Poly- 
technics are to do both things ihej must differentiate their functions; 
one department must confine itself to doing university work, and others 
to teaching foremen and craftsmen. . . . 

"The Polytechnics have suffered in all their work from the rapidity 
of their growth and the success they have achieved. There is grave danger 
that the Polytechnics may fail from the absence of a clear objective, that 
the desire to add subject to subject and class to class may lead to a 
waste of public money and to a dissipation of the energies of the teachers; 
but if this is true of their work as a whole it is especially true in regard 
to university work. Some overlapping between different grades of institu- 
tions is inevitable, and perhaps even desirable, in order to furnish opportu- 
nities for the student who for one reason or another has been obliged to 
depart from tlie normal course. But when to avoid hardship in one direc- 
tion, institutions have been diverted from the work for which they were 
originally founded and for which they are still needed, and "when they have 
been induced to undertake university work without due consideration of 
the necessity for it, or of their ability to do it efficiently, a position has 
been reached which is not only dangerous to these institutions themselves, 
but to university education as a whole. Already an active and successful 
technical college has been transformed into one of the weaker Schools of 
the University, and this example has led no less than four other institu- 
tions of the polytechnic type to put forward claims for similar recognition. 
This fact alone affords clear evidence of the need for some readjustment 
of the relation between Polytechnic institutions and the University. 
. . . [The present relations] involve elaborate and irksome regulations 
as to the length and scope of courses of study for degrees, division of 
interests and a hesitating policy among the teachers, and a complete 
failure to organize and weld into a properly co-ordinated whole the 
higher work of teaching and research which it is the main purpose of a 
university to promote. 

"Regulations prescribe the minimum length, in hours, of all approved 
courses, whether for day or evening students, and in order that a student 
may be admitted to an Internal examination he must attend four-fifths 
of the minimum number of hours allotted to the course in each subject of 
the curriculum. Elaborate rules define the number of hours' supervision 
by a 'recognized' teacher required at every course given in a workshop or a 



296 CONFLICTING AIMS 

laboratory. The scope and standard of each course are defined by de- 
tailed syllabuses which determine not only the instruction to be given, 
but the examinations to be held; and in consequence the initiative of the 
teacher and his power to break new ground are diminished. So far-reaching 
is the cumulative effect of these regulations and syllabuses that, as we 
have been informed by many witnesses, the teachers are now hampered 
in the treatment of their subjects almost as much as they used to be 
before the reconstitution of the University, when all their students were 
preparing for an external examination; and that the examinations them- 
selves are becoming more and more external in character owing to the 
necessity of providing tests suitable to a large number of institutions of 
different standards and aims. It has become impossible to allow the 
degree of liberty and personal initiative which is desirable in the case of 
university teachers of the highest rank, and which can safely be per- 
mitted even to junior teachers working under the supervision of a dis- 
tinguished head of a department. Not only are the best teachers hampered, 
but even good students in the best Schools of the University are induced 
by irksome regulation of their course of study, which they do not find 
necessary or beneficial, to abandon the Internal side and take the External 
degree. . . . 

"It has been pointed out to us that in existing conditions the syllabus 
may be a means of ensuring that some important aspect of a particular 
subject not hitherto included in the curriculum shall receive due attention; 
but this is, after all, only another way of saying that when a university 
is made up of institutions of different standards and aims the syllabus 
is a necessary means of maintaining a reasonable level of efficiency. 
. . . [But] it also tends to dishearten and keep from the meetings 
those teachers who, because they are progressive and original, should 
have a commanding influence. The body of university teachers is thus 
divided against itself. ... 

"There are other defects in the present organization of the University 
which it will be convenient to consider together, for, although they are not 
all traceable to one or other of the two main grounds we have been 
considering, they are all connected with the machinery of government. 

"Mr. Pember Reeves, the Director of the London School of Economics, 
who has had wide experience of administrative business both in this 
country and New Zealand, said in evidence: 'What is so troublesome, 
of course, is that the Boards of Studies come over the heads of the 



TERRITOEY 297 

Faculties, over the heads of almost everybody, in fact, right to the 
Senate, and a great deal of time of the Senate is passed in wrangling 
and worrying about something or other which has been done by a Board 
of Studies.' . . . 

"The large size of some of the Faculties, appears to us to be a far 
less evil than that which arises from the unequal standing of their mem- 
bers. This inequality is directly due to the second of the main causes of 
the defects in the organization — the combination in the University of a 
large number of institutions differently related to it and of different edu- 
cational standards and aims; but it is also in part due to the action of 
the Statutory Commission of 1898,. and, after them, of the Senate of the 
University in the exercise of their discretionary powers of recognizing 
teachers, and admitting them as members of the Faculties. . . . 

"Our attention has been specially directed by Lord Eeay to the views 
of the Gresham Commission. He referred to the following passage in 
paragraph 22 of their report: 'Having regard, however, to the necessity 
so frequently adverted to by the witnesses of a more systematic grouping 
and co-ordination of educational means, we should deprecate any action 
which would tend to an undue multiplication of centres of instruction. 
The evidence points strongly to the conclusion that for some time to 
come the most effectual method of promoting higher education in London 
will be by completing and supplementing the resources of existing institu- 
tions, and even in some cases by limiting to one or more centres teaching 
which is now given with inadequate resources and to inadequate numbers 
in various institutions.' 

"Lord Reay went on to say: 'That is still my opinion with regard 
to the present situation; that as the financial means which are available 
are so limited, whatever means there are should be used rather to level 
up existing institutions, both with regard to their equipment, their plant, 
and the salaries of their professors, than to start new institutions.' . . . 

"TJie Area of the University 

"We have given much consideration to the question of the proper area 
of the University. Under its present constitution the University has two 
areas. The smaller of the two is confined to the Administrative County 
of London, and it is only within this area that the University can under 
the statutes admit public educational institutions as Schools. . . . 
The larger area is defined by an imaginary line drawn at a radius of 30 
miles from the central buildings of the University, and within this area 



298 CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 

the Senate has the power of recognising teachers in public educational 
institutions, and so qualifying them for appointment to the Faculties and 
Boards of Studies, and their matriculated students for registration as 
Internal students of the University. ... If London is to have a real 
university, its area must be a relatively limited one, and we think that 
the Administrative County is certainly the largest which will allow of 
the effective organisation we desire. ["The strengthening of the Faculties 
and the close co-operation of their members."] There is a real limit to 
the number of students for which a university can provide the highest 
kind of education. It is thought by many that the University of Berlin 
with nearly 9,000 matriculated students is already too large, and we doubt 
whether the University of London would ever be able to provide for a 
much larger number than this an education comparable to that of Berlin. 
When this point has been reached the need will have arisen for another 
university, and if the University of London can prepare the way for a 
new university in the south-east of England by encouraging the develop- 
ment of the right lines of educational institutions beyond its own im- 
mediate area, it will have performed a greater service to education and 
to the State than by attempting a gigantic organisation which would 
be likely to end in the arid formalism of the Napoleonic Universite de 
France." 

The fundamental principles discerned and affirmed by the Com- 
mission on University Education in London are of universal appli- 
cation. Their proper recognition would save the rulers and admin- 
istrators of any university from injurious — perhaps fatal — errors. 
Haldane of Cloan has rendered notable service to his nation in 
various capacities; but not in the past, as Principal Secretary of 
State for War, has he exceeded, nor is it probable that he will sur- 
pass in the future, as Lord High Chancellor, the achievement rep- 
resented by this great report on university education, elaborated 
by him and his distinguished colleagues of the Commission. 

The following statement by President Alderman presents cer- 
tain ideals that should be clearly conceived and steadfastly upheld 
by all university faculties. Vague declamation about such themes 
is common enough, but it represents too often only the homage that 



CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 299 

ignorance or hypocrisy pays to philosophy and virtue. The ideals 
must be vital, conforming forces, else they will be but will-o'-the- 
wisps leading to pernicious developments, through quagmires of 
fraud and blundering. 

"The last quarter of the century has witnessed the organization of the 
American university, and the partial realization of its final form. . . . 
This new educational form will comprise: 

"(1) The College of Liberal Arts — the academic heart — which has 
assimilated scientific studies and thereby put itself in touch with the 
meaning of the age. Its function will be to receive immature youth 
in an atmosphere of broad and varied associations, in contact with wise 
and noble lives, and to offer them such experience in evoking manhood 
and capacity, and such knowledge of man, nature and spirit, that they 
shall gain power to enter into life with character^ enthusiasm, and con- 
viction. The college is a social institution, enlightening and guiding 
youth, that it may make men of them. 

"(2) The Graduate School — the academic brain — charged with the 
function of training mature and liberally educated men to investigation 
and scientific productiveness. Here shall be gained that patience and 
energy, that open-mindedness and sure thinking, that intellectual sin- 
cerity, that have belonged to all of the path-finders from Aristotle to 
Pasteur, and must belong to him who would broaden the ways and enlarge 
the boundaries of thought. The advance of civilization will rest on the 
strength of this school, and through its work alone can a university hope 
to become a school of power, binding other colleges to it in loyalty, and 
not only responsive to tradition, but to new truth daily appearing in 
the life of man. Here the quiet scholar may search out the truth and 
hold it aloft for men to see. 

"(3) The Professional Schools — the heart and brain at work on 
life — as varied in number and scope as society is complex, seeking to 
provide the world with the best skill needful for its growth, and so 
justly related to the whole, that we shall escape the peril of the illiberal 
and uneducated specialist. 

"All this shall be placed in a setting of a little world of libraries, 
laboratories, loan funds, fellowships, mechanism, and beauty, and the 
whole vitalized and spiritualized by men in such force that their spirits 
shall not break and their hopes shall not die. We do not need many such 
universities but we do need them strong and in the right places. The 



300 CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 

multiplication of weakness by weakness yields weakness still. The South 
needs them to protect its real reconstructive era from the dangers of 
empiricism, industrial dependence, and the perils that beset character 
in all democracies. . . . 

"The power necessary to transform the University into a fortress and 
dynamo of conservation and enlightenment is being won from forest 
and factory and farm, and is undergoing consecration to these high 
purposes in thousands of tender consciences and purposeful minds. . . . 
Money alone cannot make such a university, but vast power is necessary, 
and though it bear the image and superscription of Caesar, there is an 
alchemy of consecration in our laboratories which can transmute money 
into moral force. Mere individual genius, even of Plato, or Abelard or 
Arnold or Hopkins, cannot make such a university, though God pity it if 
it have not such quality of soul somewhere in its life. Prestige will not 
sufl&ce, for prestige may be a gentle euphemism for epitaph, if isolated 
from continuing power to serve a widening field." 

I have already referred* to the coinimaiiding interest and value 
of Paulsen^s great book, TJie German Universities, for all whose 
duty it is to understand the proper nature and scope and processes 
of university work. Its exposition of freedom of teaching and 
freedom of learning has been submitted to the reader. I add in 
this connection its presentment of the ideal of scholarship on the 
part of the professor in the German university, and the conse- 
quences of an accordant practice, not only for university work but 
also for the nation and, particularly, for the secondary schools. 
Professor Thilly says, in the translator's preface : 

"Our country ha?, learned much from the German universities, and 
it is largely owing to this that we occupy the position in the scientific 
world which we already occupy. It is safe to say, however, that we still 
have a great deal to learn, and that a book like Professor Paulsen's can 
point the way to new ideals. We have not yet reached the development 
of which we are capable. For one thing we have not yet reached that 
degree of inner freedom which the German university enjoys and to which 
Professor Paulsen attributes the wonderful advance which has been made 
in higher education in the nineteenth century. The one-man power, which 



Tage 266. 



CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 301 

exists in many of our institutions, the interference of governing boards 
with purely academic matters which should be left to faculties or indi- 
vidual teachers, the influence of politics and sectarianism, the unheal thful 
pressure sometimes exerted by the fear of losing appropriations, all these 
are problems which have not yet been wholly solved, but which must and 
will be solved before the American university will become what it can 
become. Of course, this absence of inner freedom of action is often due 
to the primitive condition of many of our universities . . . and will 
disappear as these institutions more closely approach the university 
ideal. . . . 

"Another element of strength in the German university, one that could 
not develop without the factor just mentioned, and without which the 
university eould never have reached its present status, is the spirit of 
investigation among its members. The German professor is, above every- 
thing else, a scientific investigator. This phase of development also has 
its shadow sides and dangers, as Professor Paulsen shows. But it is true, 
nevertheless, as he says, that the position which the German people at 
present holds in the scientific world, it owes in the main to its universities, 
and these owe what they are and what they accomplish to the principle 
on which they are based: they are scientific institutions and their teachers 
are scientific investigators. And that is just exactly the goal at which 
our own best universities are aiming, and why they are beginning to in- 
spire respect in foreign lands." 

Professor Paulsen describes the German ideal of professorial 
scholarship, and its practical consequences, as follows : 

"The peculiar characteristic of the German university as a laboratory 
for scientific research as well as a school of instruction in all the higher 
branches of general and professional knowledge becomes at once apparent 
when the internal organization of the institution is considered. Like 
the English universities, it offers a broad and deep course of instruction 
in the arts and sciences. This is the special province of the philosophical 
faculty. Like the French facultes, it offers technical instruction for the 
learned professions in that it trains the clergy, judges and higher officers 
of administration, physicians, and high school teachers. But it is, in 
addition, what the English and French universities are not, namely, 
the most important seat of scientific work in Germany, and the nursery 
of scientific investigation. According to the German idea, the university 
professor is both teacher and a scientific investigator, and such emphasis 



302 LEADERS W^ SCIENCE AS TEACHERS 

is laid upon the latter function tliat one ought rather to say that in 
Germany the scientific investigators are also the instructors of the aca- 
demic youth. . . . The important thing is not the student's prepara- 
tion for a practical calling, but his introduction into scientific knowledge 
and research. 

"This intimate union of investigation and instruction gives the Grerman 
university its peculiar character. There are excellent scholars at Oxford 
and Cambridge, but no one would speak of them as the chief representa- 
tives of English scientific achievement. . . . But even the English 
professors are not, in the German sense, the instructors of the students. 
It is true, they deliver scientific lectures, but the real instruction is 
usually left to fellows and tutors. In France, similarly, the scientific 
investigators, the great scholars, belong to the Academy, to the Institut 
de France. They are also, perhaps, members of the College de France, 
or of the Sorhonne, and as such they deliver public lectures, which anyone 
may attend. But they are not, like the German professors, the actual 
daily teachers of the students. Nor is it expected, on the other hand, 
that the members of the different faculties in France, especially in the 
provinces, should be independent scientific investigators. 

"In Germany, on the other hand, it is taken for granted that all 
university professors are investigators and scholars, and that all investi- 
gators and scholars are teachers in universities. It is true, there have 
been prominent scholars who were not university professors, men like 
Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and we find many names distin- 
guished for scholarship among teachers in the German gymnasia. It is 
likewise true that there are among the professors not only men who never 
do any important scholarly work, but men whose sole ambition is to be 
good teachers. But all these cases are exceptions. The rule is that the 
professor is also a scholar. Whenever the name of a scholar is mentioned 
in Germany, the question is at once asked, with what university is he con- 
nected? And in case he does not occupy a chair in such an institution, 
it may safely be assumed that he himself regards this fact as a slight. 
Whenever, on the other hand, a professor is spoken of, the question 
naturally arises, what has he written, what contribution has he made to 
human knowledge? 

"These conditions have an exceedingly important bearing upon our 
intellectual life. 

"The fact that he is always an academic teacher fixes the German 
scholar's place in the life of our people. Our thinkers and investigators 



CONTACT WITH LEADERS OF THOUGHT 303 

not only write books for us, but are our personal instructors, men whom 
we meet face to face. Men like Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Sehleier- 
niacher influenced their times primarily as academic teachers; their in- 
fluence as authors was not so very great. A large portion of their 
writings was published after their death, from the syllabi of their lectures 
or the notes taken by their pupils. Kant and Christian Wolff were like- 
wise university professors. So were the great philologists, Heyne, F. A. 
Wolf, G. Hermann, and Boeckh. The influence of these men was felt 
especially through their personal activity as teachers; and their pupils, 
who became teachers in their turn in the higher institutions of learning, 
diffused the spirit and method of these men among the youth of the land. 
Think of the influence which historians like Ranke and Waitz exerted 
through their seminars. Call to mind our natural scientists and math- 
ematicians. Gauss, Liebig, Helmholtz, Kirchoff, and Weierstrass. It may 
safely be said that if the contributions of the university professors were 
expunged from the history of German learning, the residue would not 
be very large. It must also be added that several of our illustrious poets 
— Uhland and Riickert, Biirger and Schiller, G^llert and Haller — were 
university professors. The influence of the professor upon our legal and 
political development has also been highly sig-nificant. Witness, for ex- 
ample, the names of Pufendorf and Thomasius, Savigny and Feuerbach, 
Niebuhr and Treitschke. And how much is implied in the fact that both 
Luther and Melanchthon were university professors. 

"It cannot be doubted that this condition is a fruitful one for all con- 
cerned. The German youths who come into direct contact with the intel- 
lectual leaders of the people at the universities thus receive their deepest 
and most lasting impressions. In German biographies the years spent 
at the university always play an important role, and it not seldom hap- 
pens that the influence of a professor determines the intellectual trend 
of a student's life. The relation is a pleasant and fruitful one, on the 
other hand, for the scholars and investigators themselves. The constant 
contact with the young enables them to prolong their own youth. The 
direct, personal communication of thought in the lecture room receives 
a stimulus and animation from the silent, but nevertheless appreciable 
reaction of the auditor which is never felt by the solitary author. The 
hearer's presence serves, moreover, to flx the teacher's attention always 
upon the essential and universal. The inclination to philosophize, the 
trend toward generalizations of which the German thinker is accused, 



304 ATTKACTION OF STRONGEST SPIRITS 

is assuredly connected with the fact that in Germany, more than anywhere 
else, knowledge is directly produced for the purpose of oral instruction. 

"But there is another side to this question. The pursuit of learning 
according to university traditions readily displays less pleasing phases 
of our intellectual life. It gives rise, for example, to a tendency to 
literary overproduction, to scholasticism, to clannishness, and to a con- 
tempt for those who are outside of the charmed circle. Such treatment is 
bitterly resented by the outsiders and often leads them into vehement 
abuse of those who belong to the 'guild,' a practice familiar enough to 
readers of Schopenhauer and Diihring. It is certainly more difficult for a 
scholar to succeed outside of university circles in Germany than in England 
or France. Moreover, if intellectual work outside of the universities could 
■enjoy a larger measure of prosperity, it would serve as a very valuable 
corrective for our distinctively academic scholarship by supplying it 
with a more unbiased viewpoint for many things, as well as with a more 
reliable standard of judgment. But certain difficulties grow out of this 
relation for university instruction also. This is especially true with 
regard to professional training, which is often neglected for the purely 
academic treatment, in which the interests of research are alone kept in 
view. This difficulty is felt just now by all the faculties, but more es- 
pecially by those of philosophy and medicine. 

"However, the German people have not, on the whole, any cause for dis- 
satisfaction with the conditions described. In Germany, more than else- 
where, learning is deeply cherished by the nation, and this is due entirely 
to the happy circumstance that here the great men of science have always 
been the personal instructors of our youth. And the universities themselves 
Iiave every reason to desire a continuation of things as they are. The 
secret of their power lies in their ability to attract and hold the leading 
spirits of the land. And so long as they can do that they will maintain 
the position which they have won for themselves in the life of our 
people. ... 

*'In the new empire . . . men of talent now find other paths to 
conspicuous positions open to them besides the academic career, such as 
parliament, the world of commerce, the colonies. Energy that can make 
itself felt finds ample room for activity and prospect of influence and profit. 
But even amid these changed conditions the universities have maintained 
their prominence in our national economy. They continue to be important 
supporters of German unity. The constant interchange of both professors 
and students between the several states of the empire helps materially 



INFLUENCE ON SECONDARY SCHOOLS 305 

to keep alive the feeling of national solidarity in the separate parts of 
the realm. And it is to be hoped that the Grerman university will always 
cherish her reputation as the mainstay of German learning. That reputa- 
tion will assuredly follow her so long as she remains true to her tradi- 
tions and keeps alive the sincere spirit which rejoices in knowledge for the 
sake of knowledge, loves the truth and is faithful to duty, thereby rising 
above the sordid sense of loss or gain. . . . 

"The character of the university is most clearly revealed by the 
faculty of philosophy, in which research, above all else, is the con- 
trolling purpose. In the other faculties the dogmatic transmission of 
professional knowledge plays a greater rOle, and their exercises, such 
as the clinics of the medical, the homiletics of the theological, and the 
practica of the law faculties, are all, in the last analysis, technical in their 
nature. The philosophical faculty, on the contrary, is purely theoretical. 
Its teachers are the true exponents of scientific research and its students 
are the scholars of the future. ... In the lectures and exercises there 
is scarcely anything to show that the hearers are destined for any other 
calling than that of the scholar. That, as a matter of fact, most of them 
intend to take up teaching as a profession, scarcely comes into considera- 
tion at all. The conviction prevails that the first and essential requisite 
for this profession is thorough scholarship. . . . Hence the German 
gymnasial teacher looks upon himself wholly as a scholar, at least at the 
beginning of his career when university memories are most keenly alive 
in him. And the ablest and most active teachers preserve this spirit 
through life, more thoroughly than do the preachers and judges, the State 
officials and physicians. These axe almost entirely occupied with the prac- 
tical demands of their profession, but the gymnasial teacher remains a 
scholar also in his profession. 

"And so it must, by all means, continue, if our gymnasia, our philo- 
sophical faculties, and even our universities, are to remain what they 
are. If the gymnasial teacher should cease to be a scholar and become 
simply a professional teacher, the philosophical faculty would likewise 
gradually degenerate into a mere professional school. And when this 
faculty ceases to be a nursery of pure science, the character of the 
entire university will undergo a change. . . . It is not only by chance 
that the learned Academies are throughout Germany a kind of appendage 
to a philosophical faculty. And it also seems worthy of remark that the 
great universities of the United States, which were patterned after the 



306 AN ULTIMATE IDEAI/ 

German universities, are really indentical with the philosophical faculties 
of the latter. 

"I must not fail to call attention to the fact that of recent years 
a counter-current to this development, an under-current of hostility to 
the scientific activity of our universities, has made itself felt in many 
ways. Something like disappointment is perceptible because scientific re- 
search does not seem to redeem its promise to supply a complete and 
certain theory of the universe and a practical world-wisdom grounded in 
the very necessity of thought. ... A new generation, as distrustful 
of reason as the former had bofen of faith, turned to science with expec- 
tation that exact research would place us upon a sure footing and supply 
us with a true theory of the world. But that science cannot do. It is 
becoming more and more evident that it does not realize such an all- 
comprehensive world-view that will satisfy both feeling and imagination. 
It only discovers thousands of fragmentary facts, some of them tolerably 
certain, especially in the natural sciences, which at least supply a basis 
for practice; some of them forever doubtful, forever capable of revision, 
as in the historical sciences. The result is a feeling of disappointment. 
Science does not satisfy the hunger for knowledge, nor does it supply the 
demand for personal culture. . . . Such disappointment is widespread. 
The chief bond uniting the followers of Nietzsche is after all this unbelief 
in science; periods of doubt are always the easiest prey of charlatans. 
But a feeling of resignation from time to time takes possession even of 
scientific circles, as may be seen from the concluding remarks of Harnack's 
Geschichte der Berliner Ahademie. Is it, as a few think, the premonitory 
symptom of the bankruptcy of science, its abdication in favor of faith? 
Or is it rather a natural demand for ideas, the long suppressed demand 
for philosophy that is coming to life again, but is not yet quite sure of 
its path and goal?" 

To reach the goal set for this chapter I must attempt to make 
at least an approximate statement of a general ideal of education 
as a result, such as ought to dominate and direct all eSoi-ts in 
education as a process. This is no vague or unpractical inquiry. 
It will depend upon some such ideal whether we squander effort in 
vain pursuits or exert it wisely and effectively. From the same 
stone may be built a house of kindness or a fortress of greed : it 
depends upon the idea of the building. So the same life may 



AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 307 

grow to harmful perversity or to beneficent power: it depends 
upon the idea of the man. The significant compelling thinor is the 
ideal. The ideal will fashion the vessel for strength or for weak- 
ness, for profit or harm, for honor or for dishonor. This fact is at 
once the hope and the despair of all enlightened educational en- 
deavor. It is the hope, because true ideals are potent to triumph 
at last over obstacles; it is the despair, because false ideals seem 
to have an almost equal potency. 

All have heard complaints and doubts about the value of what 
the speakers call education. Such strictures upon many processes 
offered by teaching institutions as "educational" would be justi- 
fied, but they are totally mistaken when applied to genuine educa- 
tion. When education is dallied with or sought in mistaken ways 
it is costly and troublesome, and there will be many who do not 
believe in it and others who wish they did not, and could get rid 
of the bother of it. But those who perceive the true nature of 
education never ask what it costs, never harbor a doubt about it. 
They condemn false imitations, but support all measures promo- 
tive of genuine results. They understand that education aims 
at intelligent sympathy with every human activity, and in its 
ultimate effects includes those elements which may be designated 
by the terms character and piety. They know, also, that the high 
and true aim in education is the practical and efficient one, simply 
because material utilities are included. Does it make one^s skill 
in any matter less marketable because he sees that enlightened char- 
acter and inner power and freedom constitute in themselves a still 
better reward for his studies than the wages they enable him to 
earn ? 

One of Euskin's incisive observations will serve to lead on to 
what I wish to say: 

"It happens that I have some connection with schools for different 
classes of youth, and I receive many letters from parents respecting 
the education of their children. In the mass of those letters, I am always 



308 AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 

struck by the precedence which the idea of a 'position in life' takes above 
all other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' — 
minds. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in 
itself, but an education which shall lead to 'advancement in life.' It never 
seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which in 
itself is advancement in life, and that any other than that may perhaps 
be advancement in death; and that this essential education might be more 
easily got or given than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; 
while it is for no price and by no favor to be got if they set about it in 
the wrong." 

What then is the ideal of true education? ISTeither knowledge 
nor yet mental discipline is education. The value of knowledge and 
mental discipline as such is indeed beyond computation, but they 
are not education — ^which is priceless. They are the material : edu- 
cation is the architecture. Plain stuff may be edified in beauty 
or in ugliness, and costliest material may be piled up in unsight- 
liness or in glory, and whether shall be the fact, lies, within certain 
limits, not is the nature nor in the amount of the material at all. 
Even so are knowledge and mental discipline related to education. 
The profounder and ampler the knowledge, the fuller and sub- 
tler the education that may issue from it. Yet the anti-type of 
education, more antagonistic to it than rude ignorance, may equally 
be yielded. This is what Euskin means when he says, "this essen- 
tial education might be more easily got or given than they fancy 
if they set about it in the right way, while it is for no price and by 
no favor to be got, if they set about it in the wrong." Hence 
institutions for teaching may be, according to the spirit that pre- 
vails in them, educational institutions, or, traitor-like, the deadliest 
foes of education. It discloses little, therefore, as to the educa- 
tional status of a place or of a country to enumerate its teaching 
institutions, or even to show their success in imparting much and 
accurate knowledge. After we have satisfied ourselves upon these 
points, we have but passed the marches of inquiry. Before any 
teaching may be rightly called educational it must be ascertained 



AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 309 

not only that accurate knowledge results, but also that the student 
is being put on the way of education — put on the way of education, 
for it is a process that lasts as long as life lasts. 

What, then, is the touchstone that tests the educated man from 
the merely taught man, be he ever so learned ? For I have known 
men so erudite, and so skilled in the manipulations of special fields 
of experimental sciences, that in their na.rrow ranges they spoke 
with authority, who were none the less plainly and hopelessly 
uneducated men. Let us see if the ideal I am striving to define 
cannot be so presented that it will be recognized as a truth that 
each one has ever dimly discerned. I know it came to me in this 
manner more than twenty years ago from one whose voice — un- 
timely hushed in death — spoke powerfully for a brief season in a 
university, in which, after twenty years, his influence is yet cher- 
ished by a few, and is being handed on amid new antagonistic con- 
ditions created by subsequent authorities who have been ignorant 
or thoughtless of the essential things. There still rings in my 
own memory an inspiring discourse by that extraordinary man, 
which, unfortunately, was never published or preserved in writing. 
Some of his very words, however, are here echoed, and the lumi- 
nous truth of his thesis could not be forgotten by a competent 
hearer. 

I believe if any one will reflect upon what characteristic he 
deems most directly antagonistic to that of being educated, he 
would say narrowness. Ignorance expresses deficiency, not antago- 
nism. From this point the truth may be leaped to at once : edu- 
cation is intelligent sympathy with all branches of human activity. 
To be intelligently sympathetic with every sort of activity of 
human head and heart and hand is to be educated. Both the 
intelligence and the sjonpathy must coexist, neither blind sympa- 
thy nor unsympathetic knowledge yield education, but the indissol- 
uble wedlock of sympathy and knowledge. Looking, for illustra- 
tion, to the products of the higher learning, if a university habitu- 



310 AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 

ally sends forth entomologists that revile palaeography, or archaeol- 
ogists despising histology ; if generally among its alumni Euripides 
looks askance at N'ewton and Lavoisier thrusts out his tongue at 
Bopp, however great as a place of teaching, such a university is a 
deeducational institution. The same criterion may be applied all 
the way from the most advanced research in a university to the 
ABC class in a primary school. Does the teaching tend to make 
the master in one field chilled in appreciation and dimmed and 
blurred in his vision of others ; does it tend to persuade the bacca- 
laureate that the subject whence his particular course has radiated 
is the radiant point of human knowledge; with lad or maiden 
for whom a summer^s day brings down the curtain on the last 
act of high school life; with the little fellow just struggling 
through a syllabilized reader, does it tend to dry up the fountains 
of their sympathy and turn aside the waters of their understanding 
from all save certain regions? — then, I say, such university or 
college or high school or primary school is the antipodes of an 
educational institution. The great word of the Eoman play- 
wright — though with deeper meaning than that with which he 
charged it — furnishes the criterion: "I am a man and nothing 
human is strange to me.'^ 

Moreover, it is of primary importance that every teacher should 
inculcate by the silent influence of a broad and lofty outlook the 
fundamental moral principle that fi:xes the prerequisite condition 
upon which any high purpose may be attained, namely, that it 
must be sought honestly. It is impossible to filch this guerdon of 
a well-aimed and well-spent life. For instance, no man can be- 
come educated so long as he has in mind and heart only the money 
that educated men are able to earn. Think a moment how many 
are doomed to failure by this immutable moral law. A man 
might as well seek to win the joys and mighty support of friend- 
ship with any selfish or ulterior purpose in his choice of friends. 
Such a man is eternally forbidden from even discovering what 



IDEALS 311 

true friendship means. It is thus with all high things, — seek 
them with a pure heart, and many others things will be added to 
us; seek them with a base purpose, and we are necessarily ex- 
cluded. 



VI. ADMINISTRATIOlSr OF THE CUEEICULUM. 

In this chapter we come to the crux of our entire subject as it 
is viewed by a much disturbed and solicitous public opinion. Both 
lay and professional critics commonly discuss the college curricu- 
lum by complaining against subjects of study as here or there 
required or permitted, and offer by way of remedy some different 
prescription for nominal studies which, in the individual's opinion, 
would be better suited to "preparation for life." They desire to 
enforce their opinions by regulations enacted in the same spirit 
and manner that have led to the existing conditions. I shall con- 
sider the administration of the curriculum in an entirely different 
way. If I imagined that I knew what the curriculum of the 
American college ought to be, I would not wish to see my opinion 
enforced by law. It is, however, perfectly evident that nobody 
knows what the college curriculum ought to be, — for the very 
sufficient reason that it ought to be variable. 

Existing College Curricula 

It would be profitless to exhibit in these pages the incessantly 
shifting maze of arbitrary facts presented in the requirements for 
the A. B. degree in American colleges and universities. The de- 
tails here or there, yesterday or today, are mere accidents of a com- 
mon spirit and manner of legislation. It is the causes of an erring 
tendency that need to be considered. The incomprehensibility of 
college catalogs has become a by-word. The faculty members by 
whose votes requirements were enacted do not pretend to know 
what they are. The students curse or deride them.. An instance 
has been reported in which the students added the following regula- 
tion: ^^ule 119. Any student who can understand these rules 
will be granted a degree without further examination.'' 

If any reader be curious about details, he is referred to Presi- 
dent W. T. Foster's recent book on the college curriculum. Ee- 



EXISTING COLLEGE CURRICULA 313 

quirements for the A. B. degree are there tabulated, as far as it is 
practicable to reduce the facts to comparable statements, in three 
tables : 

"Table I indicates the subjects required for the A. B. degree in twenty- 
nine State universities. The unit used is the year-hour, — one hour per 
week for academic year. . . . The amount of required work ranges 
from three hours in Wyoming to thirty-nine and one-half in Alabama. 
There is no conspicuous central tendency, and the average deviation of 
the individual institutions from their average is great. The foot-notes 
to Table 1 give further evidence of the incomprehensible action of college 
faculties when they undertake to lay down arbitrary restrictions con- 
cerning the curriculum for all students. The vast amount of miscella- 
neous experimenting with the college curriculum that has produced the 
temporary results set forth in this table gives point to the remark of 
Professor Cattell that the collective unwisdom of a college faculty is not 
often exceeded by an individual student. Any one who has observed a col- 
lege faculty make a decision at one meeting and promptly reverse it at the 
next, without a particle of new evidence on the issue, is not unreasonably 
skeptical concerning the stability or the worth of the regulations summa- 
rized in these tables. 

"Table II presents the subjects required for the A. B. degree and the 
number of year-hours allotted to each in certain universities under private 
control. [Fourteen leading endowed universities, followed by nine leading 
colleges for women.] . . . 

"Table III presents the practice of forty small colleges in all parts of the 
country. It would seem that the almost innumerable differences here re- 
vealed must shake the confidence of any faculty in the wisdom of its 
absolute prescriptions, and yet the table excludes those colleges exhibiting 
the greatest idiosyncrasies in their requirements. So widely divergent are 
the regulations of a hundred other colleges included in this investigation 
that it would be impossible to include them in any useful table." 

In view of such facts President Foster justly comments: 

"College catalogs from all parts of the country tell us that students 
are required to pursue those subjects that are universally regarded as 
essential to a liberal education. It would be pertinent to ask the writers 
of such statements to examine Tables I, II, III, and then name those sub- 
jects that are universally regarded as essential to a liberal education. 



314 EXISTING COLLEGE CURRICULA 

Ife there one? Even the general prescription of English is an agreement 
in name only; what actually goes on under this name is so diverse as to 
show that we have not yet discovered an 'essential' course in English. And 
this is our nearest approach to agreement." 

Eequirements concerning concentration and distribution of 
studies show similar arbitrariness and confusion. The facts in 
detail are given by Foster in his tables YIII, IX, and X. They 
correspond in the institutions considered to the tables I, II, III 
already described; but several institutions had to be omitted from 
each, because their requirements were not "sufficiently free from 
excessive complications and eccentricities, to render tabulation 
possible/^ 

"Even these groups of colleges and universities, selected for the relative 
simplicity of their requirements, present great diversity and complexity 
as their most striking features. In the number of subjects required, in the 
number of year-hours unrestricted, in the proportion of work called for 
by the major subject, in the proportion controlled by the major adviser, 
in the amount prescribed for distribution, in the maximum and minimum 
allowances for groups, there is no uniformity, not even any significant 
central tendencies. 

"Here, as in the attempt to prescribe 'essential' subjects, the actual 
practices of colleges all over the country reveal no guiding principles. 

. . . So innocent of abiding cause are these miscellaneous and con- 
tradictory regulations that the tables will be out of date, no doubt, shortly 
after they are printed. Indeed, such administrators as actually enforce 
these rules must be hard put to it for reasons, unless their students are 
uncommonly docile." 

Here (as in a flood of more superficial criticism that is being 
vented from all sides) the lack of uniformity, appears to be con- 
ceived as a vice in itself. On the contrary, uniformity would be 
a symptom of decadence, and would be possible only under con- 
ditions of stagnation, or of arbitrary and absolute external con- 
trol. The mere fact of difference in requirements for the degree 
is not the cause of the unsatisfactory results, complained of with 
justice but commonly mis-diagnosed as to cause. Maladminis- 



DISSATISFYING CONSEQUENCES 315 

tration of college curricula has, in each case, its ultimate causes 
in various errors of fundamental organization. Its results, which, 
in their turn cause the most dissatisfying consequences, are (1) 
the low quality of some required courses of instruction, as compared 
with others in the same institution, (2) the imposition by some 
institutions of therr own particular requirements upon students 
having credit for one or more years' work in another equal or 
superior college, and (3) the moral effect of enforcing any require- 
ments which are no better than some other arrangement of studies 
desired by an individual student. 

The first mentioned result creates a condition by which students 
are driven to sit under a weakling from whom they are aware 
that nothing is to be gained. The natural and wholesome com- 
petition, whereby each instructor should stand mainly upon his 
merits, is thus prevented. The unfit are upheld as much as the 
fit. The administration is of things "on paper." Realities are 
ignored. 

The second result creates conditions whereby a yearns good work 
in an equal or superior college is wantonly discounted, without 
even the pretense of an intrinsic reason. "It is our regulation. 
We cannot make an exception," explains the admitting oflScial. 
The matriculant must acquiesce. He assumes the extra burdens 
imposed upon him, and the Administration sits smugly uncon- 
scious of the consequences. But the lack of justice and intelli- 
gence is obvious. The respect and confidence of the yoimg man 
are more or less forfeited. The irrational perplexities and diffi- 
culties presented in this country to every college student who for 
any reason is about to transfer from one college to another, engen- 
der an irritation and contempt which is becoming widespread. 
The public and many college deans and presidents seem to be 
blindly seeking a remedy in "uniformity" or "standardization." 
No uniform curriculum is either possible or desirable. 

The third result creates an atmosphere of "red tape." It meets 
the students at every turn. They are incessantly puzzling over 



316 THE REMEDY 

endless permutations and combinations offered by complicated reg- 
ulations. Year by year the requirements change. A student de- 
siring the counsel of an elder comrade, hears: "Literature 10b 
is all right, I am getting more out of it than from any other 
course. But you can't take it and count." "How's that ?" "You 
have had three courses in English and three in Literature already, 
and six is the limit.* Besides, in the way you have followed 
your group, you must take one course in Public Speaking.'' "Have 
you had that?" "No, but I entered under the 1909 catalog and 
we don't have to take this new dope." "But Professor A — advised 
me to take that course in Literature." "They won't let it count; 
and you will be compelled to take Public Speaking. See the 
Dean, if you don't believe me." College students are, of course^ 
not competent judges of technical questions, nor are they guilty 
of or disposed to any such presumption. But ingenuous 3^oung 
men are good judges of the spirit and mass effect of any disci- 
pline to which they are subjected. The men in the ranks do not 
presume to judge strategy or grand tactics, 3^et they shrewdly 
know when orders are vacillating or aimless; and when his officer 
is "rattled" the predicament is very plain to Tommy Atkins. 
AVhile college presidents and deans are publishing their grave 
anxieties about student-problems, college students all over the 
land — with less gravity but with equal seriousness and more sin- 
cerity — are deploring the obtuseness and vagaries of their gov- 
ernors. If the humor of the situation were generally discerned, 
our academic fogs would be blown away as a clear breeze disperses 
the watery vapor of the atmosphere. 

In short, the remedy is not some new arrangement of complex 
arbitrary requirements. Improvement should be sought in sim- 
plification and in appreciation of quality in the teaching and in 



*Harvard says: "Every student shall take at least six courses in 
some one department." Some other colleges refuse to give credit for 
more than six courses in one department, e. g., University of Texas says: 
"Not more than six courses may be counted in one subject, not more 
than six in English and General Literature together." 



A REACTIONARY DEPARTURE 317 

the learning, instead of by exacting nominal particulars. The 
latter have generally been adopted by accidental or subservient 
majorities at perfunctory faculty meetings. A university could 
protect itself and the genuineness of its degrees more effectively 
by judging the work of an advanced student, after he has been 
admitted, on the face value of the number of years spent at 
another reputable college, than by superciliously discounting devi- 
ations from its ovs^n vacillating requirements. The courses of each 
department could protect themselves by logical prerequisites. The 
only essential general requirement is a suitable number of advanced 
courses in the total number of courses required for the degree. 
Every department should demand ability to write correct English.* 

Harvard's new departure, which went into effect with the class 
of 1914, after forty years of free election, is the most deliberate 
and carefully constructed plan for compulsory concentration and 
compulsory scattering that has been devised. For the 17 courses 
(or 17 J under certain circumstances) required for the Harvard 
A. B. degree, the new rules demand: 

"I. Every student shall take at least six of his courses (a course is 
3 year-hours) in some one department, or in one of tlie recognized fields 
for distinction. In the latter case four must be in one department. 



*The first Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, in accordance 
with Jefi"erson's Avish, provided that two degrees should be conferred by 
the University. The lower degree, characteristic of the institution for 
many years, was conferred upon a student who had completed all the 
work offered in any one School; to such a candidate the untitled degree 
of "Graduate" of the School in question should be given. (Each distinct 
branch of knowledge was, as far as practicable, assigned to an individual 
''School" with its own instructors.) The other, the higher degree, was to 
be the Doctor's degree and was to be given to the graduate in two or more 
Schools who had, in addition, exhibited well developed powers of research. 
The first faculty, however, soon substituted (in 1831) the Master's degree, 
common in England, and for more than half a century the degree "Master 
of Arts of the University of Virginia" was the leading titled degree con- 
ferred by the University of Virginia. For the degree of graduate of any 
School the faculty required: "In all cases the candidate shall give the 
Faculty satisfactory proof of his ability to write the English language 
correctly." 



318 A REACTIONARY DEPARTURE 

Only two of the six may be courses open to Freshmen or distinctly elemen- 
tary in character. 

[Twelve pages of fine print in the Catalogue state some of the provi- 
sions alluded to in the words "recognized fields for distinction."] 

"II, For purposes of distribution all the courses open to undergraduates 
shal be divided among the following four general groups. Every student 
shall distribute at least six of his courses among the three general groups 
in which his chief work does not lie, and he shall take in each group not 
less than one course, and not less than three in any two groups. He 
shall not count for purposes of distribution more than two courses which 
are also listed in the group in which his main work lies. 

[The four groups regulating the scattering of 6 courses, — leaving 5 
courses unconditionally elective.] 

"III. Prescribed work shall not count either for concentration or dis- 
tribution." 

[Upon various conditions, one, one and a half, two, two and a half 
courses may be prescribed.] 

Dean Briggs lias explained that Harvard^s "new scheme of col- 
lege instruction is more radical in principle than in its probable 
effect on the elective studies of the general student body, and is 
not meant to be violenth^ revolutionary." He values the new 
scheme (i. e., new at Harvard) "as a guide and regulator to the 
student entangled in the elective pamphlet." 

I offer no objection to the new Harvard program "as a guide." 
As a hortative proposal, let us grant it substantial merit. But 
it is not a guide. It is a compulsory law. Its vice lies in its 
imperative mood. The voice of the Faculty is not speaking in 
calm counsel — "Every student is advised to tal^e"; the utterance 
is peremptory — "Every student shall take at least six courses in 
one department." The wise spirit and art of persuasion and 
guidance have been crowded aside in every sphere of our social 
life by an overweening disposition to enforce opinions by law. 

If one does not regard the spirit of this matter of degree require- 
ments, its importance is diminished almost to a vanishing point. 
It would surprise those who are agitating themselves and their 
fellow citizens on the subject, if they paused to find out how 



STATISTICAL COMPARISONS 319 

little their adored averages are changed by the reek of law-making. 
President Foster exposes the practical ineffectiveness of the devices 
for compulsory concentration and compulsory scattering by com- 
parisons with the actual choices of students under free election 
in the same and other institutions. He says: 

"The best available evidence on this question is the programs of study 
actually chosen under the Elective System. ... Of one thousand 
men from the Classes of 1908 and 1909 in Harvard College, only about 
20 per cent met all the requirements of the new rules. Had those re- 
strictions been in force, about half of these students would have been 
compelled to change one or two courses. Only a few would have needed 
as many as five changes in their programs. . . . 

"Fifty complete programs of study taken at random, alphabetically, 
from the Class of 1909 at Harvard, and an equal number from the Class 
of 1909 at Yale, reveal the following facts. At Harvard 22 per cent, at 
Yale 68 per cent, did not take one- third of their work in one subject. 
Only one student at Harvard and only two at Yale failed to take one- 
fourth of their work in one subject. Seventeen men at Harvard and 
only one at Yale took no courses in science; ten at Harvard took no 
courses in philosophy or mathematics; two at Harvard elected no course 
in the history group. There were no other instances in either college 
of the omission by any student of one of the four groups of studies. This 
is evidence that the Harvard plan for restricting the Elective System ia 
likely to influence but few choices at Harvard." 

The only serious objection to the Harvard program if it were a 
question of advice, rests upon the concentration requirement, which 
may be deemed excessive for the majority of students. The effect 
of the requirements for distribution is almost nil. The Harvard 
concentration requirement forces, in any case, more than one-third 
(6-17) of the four years' work to be taken in one subject — with 
the allowance concerning "fields for distinction'^ ; and in case a 
student concentrates on a subject prescribed for the freshman year, 
seven-seventeenths of all studies must be in one subject, as the 
prescribed course will not be counted. Few students in other col- 
leges specialize to the full extent required by the Harvard rules. 
A Committee on Collegiate Instruction of the Education Section 



320 STATISTICAL COMPARISON'S 

of the American Association for the Advancement of Science col- 
lected, in 1910, five hundred complete records of the courses taken 
for the baccalaureate degree by students in leading colleges. The 
samples from each institution were selected at random. The tables 
prepared by the chairman of the committee, Prof. E. L. Thorn- 
dike, give the individual records. They cannot be summarized. 
They show that "few students specialized to the extent of six 
three-hour courses in one subject. Of the 200 programs from 
Princeton, Williams, Columbia, Wabash, Beloit, Wesleyan, and 
Wellesley, 171 indicate no such degree of concentration.^' 

The question whether or not the students of a tj^pical small col- 
lege, operating under a free elective system, show any need for such 
control as would be enforced by the Harvard rules, is answered 
by President Poster for those who, from lack of experience, need 
the statistical evidence. Men with adequate experience coupled 
with good judgment could have foretold substantially the result 
of the investigation: 

"There can be no better way to consider the need of a small college 
for such rules as Harvard has adopted than to examine the actual pro- 
grams developed under free election. A study of the entire courses of all 
the graduates of Bowdoin College of the Class of 1909 is therefore pro- 
fitable. This class of fifty-four members took its entire work under an 
Elective System which, for our present purposes, may be regarded as 
virtually unrestricted. It is true that each student was obliged to com- 
plete before graduation either one major and two minor subjects or two 
major subjects. A' major subject was one pursued for three consecutive 
years. A minor subject was one pursued for two years. A detailed study 
of all the electives of five classes, however, supplemented by personal in- 
quiry, revealed the fact that apparently not more than one or two students 
in any class were limited in their choice by these rules. Above 90 per 
cent of all the students concentrated their work in excess of the prescribed 
amount. Finally, since every student took more hours in the language 
and literature group than the rules specified, and since he was at liberty 
entirely to ignore the other three groups, we can here discover to what 
extent the Harvard regulations, had they been operative, would have 



STATISTICAL COMPARISONS 321 

modified the fifty-four individual programs, which were, in fact, under 
no such restrictions. 

"The concentration requirement, if interpreted literally, would have 
changed every program in the class. No student took one-third of his 
courses in one subject. Eleven took 14-19 per cent in their major sub- 
ject; twenty took 20-24 per cent; twenty-one took 25-30 per cent; two 
took 33 per cent. On the other hand, if we inquire how many elected one- 
third of their work from advanced courses in language and literature, we 
find that at Bowdoin all but four of the class chose this degree of con- 
centration. The student who devoted the smallest proportion of his time 
to his major group gave 36 per cent to natural sciences and 29 per cent 
to language and literature. Three of the four exceptions just noted were 
students who received honors from the faculty and whose electives would 
have been approved by any committee instructed ''to make exceptions 
to the rules freely in the case of earnest men'*. . . . 

"With reference to the Harvard rules for distribution among the three 
groups other than the student's major group, the electives of these fifty- 
four Bowdoin men exhibit the following results: four students fell one- 
half course short of the requirement in natural science; four students 
fell one course short, and one student fell one-half course short of the 
requirement in history, political and social sciences; three students fell 
one-half course short of the requirement in philosophy and mathematics; 
no student failed to meet the requirement in language and literature. 

"To satisfy the complicated Harvard rules regarding the distribution 
of the six courses among the three groups, five students would have been 
obliged to substitute for a choice in literature a course in one of the 
other groups. Such are the few scattering cases that would have been 
slightly affected by the new Harvard rules, had these rules been operative, 
and had the committee not included these few cases within the excuse 
limits of their liberal instructions. Each of these students could have 



*The reference is to instructions that have been given by the Harvard 
Faculty to a committee: 

"The Committee on the Choice of Electives was instructed in admin- 
istering these general rules for the choice of electives by candidates for a 
degree in Harvard College to make exceptions to the rules freely in the 
case of earnest men who desire to change at a later time the plans made 
in their Freshman year, and to make liberal allowances for earnest stu- 
dents who show that their courses are well distributed, even though they 
may not conform exactly to the rules laid down for distribution. In 
making exceptions to the rules, a man's previous training and outside read- 
ing are to be taken into account." — Dean's Report. 



322 ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

presented adequate reasons for his slight departure from the necessarily 
arbitrary scheme which its devisers agree should be administered with free 
allowance for individual needs. Even without such allowances, less than 
two per cent of the units in the total schedules of this class would have 
been changed by the Harvard distribution rules. If, therefore, the total 
experience of this class is any criterion by which to judge the future, — 
and no better one is possible, — the adoption by Bowdoin of the Harvard 
scattering requirements would have only a negligible effect. Nearly, if not 
all, that the new plan for compulsory distribution of studies at Harvard 
aims to achieve is, in fact, already achieved under the much more restricted 
curriculum ["curriculum" is here used in the sense of all courses offered] 
and the virtually unrestricted Elective System of a typical small college.'* 

The Elective System 

The curriculum requirements in the majority of American col- 
leges, respecting either concentration or scattering, have little or no 
effect for their avowed purpose. It is a statistical fact that they 
are more than fulfilled under free election. This fact exposes the 
caliber of the men who dominate the faculties that moil and stew, 
over the concoction of such regulations. It may be said in exten- 
uation that there has, perhaps, been no other ready way for the 
better men to hold in check those who insist on making laws for 
everything. A tub has been thrown to the whale. Behemoth 
swallows, and for a while imagines himself satisfied. But his 
appetite for law-making soon reawakens, and the stew begins over 
again for a new set of rules. 

The general public has been misled on a question of fact by a 
clamor raised against the elective system by "educators" who 
lifted up their voices to bewail the passing of prescribed curricula. 
As an echo of that uproar, sporadic complaints continue to be 
made that students under the elective system scatter studies over 
so many subjects that there ought to be a return to a thoroughly 
prescribed curriculum. Such persons would be astonished to learn 
that the truth is the opposite of their assumption. Practically no 
student under free election scatters his studies as much as all 



WHY PRESCRIBED CURRICULA BROKE DOWN 323 

students were compelled to do in the patchwork of the latter days 
of prescribed curricula — after the various ph3'sical sciences re- 
quired recognition. The prescribed curriculum broke down of its 
own weight for the very reason that it forced every student to 
an excessively scattered schedule of meager courses. Its advocates 
who opposed the free election of studies never discerned what the 
real trouble was. Those who now regret the old prescription, and 
the few who still persist in practicing it, are in the same predica- 
ment. President Eliot testifies out of the abundance of his expe- 
rience and discriminating observation, that the worst choices made 
by negligent students imder free election are merely counterparts 
of the old prescribed courses. The reader is referred to his inspir- 
ing chapter on The Elective System. I can quote only a few of 
his wise statements concerning several points that seem to be 
most frequently talked about without knowledge: 

"The elective system has been described by its opponents as a wide- 
open, miscellaneous bazaar. . . . Nothing could be farther from the 
facts than this description. An elective system presupposes a well-ordered 
aeries of consecutive courses in each large subject of instruction. . . . 
The series of subjects is natural and plain, except for the unexplained gaps 
which often occur in the series, — gaps due to the inadequacy of the in- 
stitution's resources. ... In each subject the schedule of courses 
should be in the highest degree orderly and consecutive*, rising from the 
elementary, comprehensive course, through courses of greater and greater 
difl&culty, becoming more and more intensive, until the summit is reached 
in the conferences or seminars which take advanced students to the 
limits of knowledge in that subject. It is obvious that a university which 
undertakes thus to deal with all [or many] subjects of knowledge must 
offer a very large total of different courses, and that in a certain sense, 
therefore, the choice of the individual student has a large range; but 
it is equally obvious that in the list or schedule of courses in a given di- 



*"Catalogs are sometimes purposely misleading. That is a different 
matter. In matters, however, which it is the intention to make clear, 
there is often difficulty for college officials to interpret the catalog 
of another institution. What would the average university catalog then 
be for a boy just completing the high school?" — Pres. Kane, University 
of Washington. 



324 ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

vision or department of knowledge the choice of the individual student 
has strenuous limitations. Thus, the beginner must take the elementary- 
course first, and he must then advance through the schedule of the de- 
partment by well-marked steps. . . . The department announcements 
contain numerous prescriptions concerning the sequence of courses. He 
cannot take two courses which occur in the time-tables at the same hour; 
and the time-tables may be systematically used to prevent unwise combi- 
nations of courses. . . . 

"The first effect of the elective system on the individual student who 
has intellectual ambition is always to get more work from him. It also 
makes him sooner a productive person, that is, a contributor to the sum 
of knowledge. This is the primary object of the elective system, — to 
make the serious student work hard, accomplish something worth while, 
and so win power and happiness. . . . 

"But how is it with the college student who is not serious? . . . His 
total selection of courses will probably resemble the old prescribed course 
in the American college, that is, it will remain in the elements of all sub- 
jects, . . . and it will contain a greater variety of subjects than any 
ambitious student will include in his programme. It will, however, be 
a course which will procure from the chooser more work than such a 
person would ever have done under a prescribed system; because in some 
degree it is selected on the ground of the mental interests of the individual, 
or on the ground of the attractive and influential personality of some 
teacher or teachers. 

"It would be dif&cult to overestimate the value of an elective system 
for the lowest quarter of a college class. It not only gets much more 
work out of that quarter, but also offers them their only chance of ex- 
periencing an intellectual awakening while in college. By following, though 
almost unconsciously, their natural bent, such young men have the best 
chance of developing some power of application, and some desire for intel- 
lectual achievement. The object of the elective system for a student dis- 
posed to follow the line of least resistance is to give him a chance to get 
roused from his childish state of mind and will, and to feel stirring within 
him the motives of a considerate and fore-looking adult. 

"There is another class of students to whom an elective method is a 
great blessing, namely, the late-developing young men, and the young 
men whose minds are not quickened by any of the subjects usually taught 
in secondary schools. The old prescribed college curriculum, which was 
in the main a continuation of school subjects, rarely offered these men 
any new advantages or opportunities; but the wide-ranging elective sys- 



GROUP SYSTEMS 325 

tern may easily give them extrance to fields in which they have some chance 
to excel. Here, again, an elective system brings opportunity, and with it 
inspiration and hope. . . . 

"In any college or university which undertakes to present a series 
of graded courses in all. the common subjects of knowledge, election of 
studies in some measure by the individual student, or selection for him, 
is absolutely inevitable; for no single student can take in three or four 
years more than a small fraction of the instruction in the liberal arts 
offered at such an institution. But if election by the individual with the 
natural aids works well in practice, it is of course to be preferred to any 
method of selection for the individual by an authority outside himself, since 
freemen are best trained by practice in freedom with responsibility. Now, 
the experience of forty years iiE a great variety of American institutions 
has proved that election by the individual works well, wherever the ad- 
ministrative methods which should accompany such an elective system 
have been well devised and well executed. Hence, the system is not only 
inevitable, but in the highest degree expedient and profitable." 

■ --^ 

The necessity of selecting a few out of the many courses forces 
itself upon all who face the question in any practical way. But 
so obsessed by a lust for law-making are those who maneuver or 
dictate faculty action in many universities, that they seem unable 
to rest upon the proper administrative safeguards of a genuine 
elective curriculum. Feeling that they must make sweeping laws 
of some sort, they have frequently resorted to what is termed the 
"group system." By this system a show of freedom is made 
which may deceive some unanalytical minds. But group systems, 
in some cases, are more injurious than any other form of prescrip- 
tion that would be tolerated. It is tolerated only because its effects 
are masked for inexpert observers. It forces the boy fresh from 
the high school to choose a certain set of studies out of a number 
of similarly prescribed sets, and confines his election of courses 
throughout the four years to the gi-oup picked at the start. To 
the thoughtless this seems a free election, but it really robs the 
student of his best opportunity to profit by experience in college 
life and work. It substantially fixes the sphere of his studies 
and his teachers at the outset, when he knows least about himself 



226 _ GEOUP SYSTEMS 

and all the subjects and teachers supposed to be made available 
by the college. If he should come^ through experience and counsel, 
to desire to meet a teacher not included in the group of his first 
forced "election/' or to take up or continue some subject not in 
the specifications of his group, it is always difficult and often 
impossible to satisfy his desire without extending his work beyond 
four years. If he can change at all, he must compromise on 
another group. Speaking of the group system. President Eliot 
says : "To impose upon a boy for several years an ill-fitting group 
of studies from which he can hardly extricate himself, is a much 
more serious matter than to allow him to choose amiss one or two 
studies which he can easily replace.'^ I do not see how this judg- 
ment can be candidly disputed, and, as I have suggested, the 
possibility of "an ill-fitting group of studies^' is not the worst 
feature of the group system. Its most serious menace is the prob- 
ability of an ill-fitting group of teachers. The fresh matriculate 
may know enough about subjects of study to pick a group approxi- 
mately satisfactory on the score of its subjects; but, generally, he 
knows nothing at all about the men who are to teach those and 
other subjects. Yet his teachers are more important for weal or 
woe to the ordinary student, than any arrangement of subjects. 
The ver\- idea of personal and professional responsibility and com- 
petition appears to be abhorred by those who devise the regulations 
enacted by or in the name of American professors. If mag- 
nanimity is not to become extinct in the institutions which ought 
to be its chief nurseries, prevalent rules and regulations rendering 
it impossible or difficult or dangerous for a student to choose his 
instructors (especially in the way of a change), must be abolished. 
In a genuine elective system no two four-years selections out 
of thousands of individual choices are identical. Minds left at 
freedom do not fall into a half-dozen or a dozen artificial groups. 
A thousand other combinations would (admittedly) be quite as 
suitable as the groups that are arbitrarily devised by a committee 
appointed by dean or president, and adopted at a poorly attended 



GROUP SYSTEMS 327 

faculty meeting. If men who understand how easily all desirable 
concentration and distribution would be secured by a few con- 
servative general regulations and the proper departmental require- 
ments, oppose the committee report, their resistance is unavailing 
under the prevalent organization. The characteristic experience 
has been described, and the true causes and effective remedies 
have been explained in previous chapters. 

The group system may be justified in secondary schools for 
reasons that do not apply to the university. In the first place 
high school pupils really need a prescribed curriculum, chiefly 
because many parents would otherwise make choices far more 
prejudiced and ill-advised than any elections that could be made, 
after a prescribed high school course of study, by college students 
under a properly administered elective system. In the second 
place, the number of teachers and subjects in high schools is 
limited by economic and pedagogical conditions, and several groups 
may represent expedient alternatives of fully prescribed curricula. 
Five or six prescribed groups may thus be made out of a dozen 
different studies by omitting some and varying the number of 
years required in other subjects in the respective groups. The 
effect of a wide variety is produced; parents prejudiced against 
this or that subject as not being "practical" are pacified; and it 
is possible at the same time to make each group a good prescribed 
course. None of these conditions or considerations are rightly 
applicable in the university. It is impossible to have a college 
or university in any legitimate sense, if the intercourse between 
teachers and taught is kept upon the plane of the secondary 
school. 

Besides the group system, another wretched device is frequently 
adopted to compromise the elective system. The curriculum is 
prescribed for the first two years, and left elective for the last 
two. Some presidents and deans plume themselves upon this 
practice, in popular expositions of their ways and works. Those 
who understand know that curricula thus administered allow ad- 



328 ADVANCED COURSES 

vanced study only in the subjects included in the prescription for 
the freshmen and sophomore years. It is plain that no student, 
under this plan^ can pursue any other subject more than two 
years. This same result follows from the spontaneous practice 
of some departments in systems alleged to be freely elective. I 
refer to departments that refuse to admit freshmen or often even 
sophomore students to their first (i. e., most elementary) courses. 
The heads of such departments sometimes exhibit a fatuous pride in 
the inaccessibility of their departments to all but ^^advanced" stu- 
dents. It should be evident that they make truly advanced work 
in their departments impossible for undergraduate students. Dur- 
ing the first twenty years of the elective system at Harvard (until 
1890) the departments of economics and philosophy refused to 
admit freshmen. "Accordingly/' says President Eliot, "the stu- 
dents who were attracted towards those subjects found themselves 
compelled to begin them in the Sophomore or even in the Junior 
year. Yet the advanced courses could not be attacked until the 
long elementary courses had been mastered. Experience of the 
difiiculty of producing advanced students of these subjects under 
such conditions within the period of college residence, finally led 
the faculty to abandon its theory. ... By trial they made 
the encouraging discovery that some Freshmen are more mature 
than some Seniors/' The college teacher who is not aware of 
the truth of the words I have underscored, has been blind to the 
most obvious facts in his experience. I do not believe that any 
department organized as I have recommended* would ever show 
this blindness. In the particular subjects named, academic prep- 
aration has the minimum, and native quality of mind the maxi- 
mum bearing upon true eligibility. Some conspicuous political 
careers among us should have demonstrated that economics may be 
studied for a gi-eat many j^ears without learning its A B C's; and 
philosophy is not likely to be chosen except by a student whose 



*See pp. 247 to 252. Cf., also, p. 270. 



A SUGGESTIVE INSTANCE 329 

interest in the subject is ample justification for an attempt to study 
it. Any genuine scholar in philosophy would rather teach pure 
philosophy to an absolutely illiterate man endowed with native 
ability to thinh, than to a master of arts weak or blunted in his 
intuitive and logical powers, I remark^ in passing, that natural 
aptitude for the study of philosophy is stifled by the quality and 
mode of teaching that prevails at every stage of our systematic 
school-teaching. Perhaps fifty prj' centum of all children are 
little philosophers. The latent aptitude appears even after ten 
years of antagonistic schooling if free access is opened to a gifted 
teacher of philosophy. For example, the young instructor whose 
lectures at Cornell used to be attended, as I have told, by so many 
hearers receiving no "credits" for attendance, to-day, as professor 
of philosophy in a great state university, has enrolled in three 
'stiff' courses (logic, ethics, history of philosophy), taught by him- 
self, one-fourth of all the undergraduate students in the college 
of arts and sciences. In two gTaduate courses, also conducted by 
him,* more than one-fourth of all graduate students are enrolled. 
If these facts are paralleled in any other university in America, 
I do not know of the instance; yet I believe the experience cited 
would be repeated an^^where under like conditions. I mean that 
the causes are not to be sought in any exceptional preparation 
of the young men who are attending the university in question, 
but in the facts that a deep and vital subject is worthily taught; 
that credit for the course is not given to an absurdly large portion 
of the class, and is therefore truly creditable; and that no abusive 
administration of "discipline^' ejects a student for failing in two 
or three courses to win credits, although all lectures have been at- 
tended and every exercise honestly attempted.** 



*There is a tendency (which should be corrected) in that noble but 
impecunious university to drive free horses to death. Both faculty and 
students seem to me to work harder (though none more happily) than 
anywhere else. 

**Cf. p. 329 et sq. 



330 ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

In respect to the elective system in general, President Eliot's 
testimony will apply wherever the individual courses have been 
properly guarded: 

"What occurs may now be plainly seen by any competent person who 
will patiently examine the records of the students' choices at Harvard 
College during the last thirty-five years. Careful inspection of the records 
will satisfy any candid mind that the elective system does not produce 
the evil imagined ; but, on the contrary, results in almost all cases in 
consistent plans of individual study throughout the college course. Incon- 
secutive or aimless selections are hard to find. More than twenty years 
ago, three experts, all familiar with the relations and sequences of the 
courses of instruction given during the period of 1881 to 1885, carefully 
examined the entire series of three hundred and fifty choices made by the 
students of that time, being the entire classes of 1884 and 1885 in Harvard 
College, They endeavored, independently of each other, to pick out those 
selections which, in their judgment, lacked coherency or consecutiveness. 
These three agreed upon only six eases of incoherence — three in the Class 
of '84, and three in the Class of '85. . . . When three experts cannot 
agree that a given selection of studies lacks coherency, it may well be that 
knowledge of the circumstances and conditions under which the individual 
selection was made would fully explain or indeed justify it. The general 
result of this particular examination was that incoherent choices were 
very few, and that the intelligence in selection was nearly as great in 
the lower half of a class as in the upper. This verdict would stand 
unchanged today, except that the recent gross exaggeration of athletic 
sports has added slightly to the number of incoherent or wrong-motived 
elections of studies." 

I am aware that there is a quota of men (sometimes men and 
women) in the faculty of every state university and every sectarian 
college, who, even though they were forced to admit the full truth 
of the facts stated by President Eliot, would still strive to impose 
prohibitions and prescriptions upon all, — lest some football player 
might pick out ^Vrong-motived elections of studies.^' The 
alternative of correcting directly "the recent gross exaggeration 
of athletic sports,'' on the intrinsic merits of that question, would 
not appeal to them. If any proper argument can bring such char- 



INHERENT SAFEGUARDS FOR FREE ELECTION 331 

acters to moral sanity, I have never witnessed or heard of the feat. 
If they cannot be outvoted in faculty meetings there is no hope 
for present remedy. The great trouble is that such characters (in 
the body politic as well as in university faculties) act and vote 
in packs, whereas the better sorts of men are prone to hold too 
stubbornly to minor differences in their individual ideas. It is 
the characteristic fault of the courageous man who is thoughtless, 
that he is too ready to stand alone. As an epigrammatic friend of 
mine once expressed it : "True men ought to stand together better 
than they do, because the mean fellows seem to have signs and 
passwords." 

Of course, no reader will imagine that the fairly coherent and 
judicious choices made by thousands of youths depend upon any 
mysterious wellsprings of wisdom. The facts are a simple con- 
sequence of the inherent guidance given by the logical needs of the 
courses in every department and by the requirement of a proper 
number of advanced courses for a degree. A valid sequence within 
each department is plain. But the student soon discovers that 
advanced courses cannot be pursued without previous study in other 
departments. He cannot go forward in chemistry without some 
physics; he cannot go far in either without some German and 
French. Nothing at all can be done in physics without mathe- 
matics ; nothing in agriculture without botany. Biology necessitates 
some chemistry, and so on. If the courses in every department 
approximate what they ought to be, coherence and sufficient distri- 
bution takes care of itself for every student who would graduate. 
If a genuine elective system does not work well in such regards, 
then, either intrinsically weak and worthless courses are being 
offered, or credits are given for attendance instead of for attain- 
ment. The simple requirement that there must be a minimum 
number of advanced courses offered for the degree, secures as 
much concentration as need be compulsory. When degrees are 
given with distinction, the requirments for distinction in each 
field afford additional guides: thus, no college worthy the name 



332 EFFECT OF ELECTIVE SYSTEM OX SCHOLAESHIP 

would confer a degree with Honors in Literature for an election 
including less than a good knowledge of at least two languages and 
two literatures, — of which one should be ancient and one modern, 
as at Harvard. Let the candidate offering less take his degree 
without distinction in literature. 

Much ink and talk has been sjDilled over the question of confer- 
ing the same degree for various undergraduate courses of study. 
I do not deem the question of sufficient moment to require more 
than passing mention in a study of things deemed to be vitally im- 
portant. Education could be conducted very well (and is so con- 
ducted in many countries) without any degree corresponding to 
our B. A.^s, B. S.^s, B. Lit.'s, B. Ph.'s, etc. I see only a respectable 
but misapplied sentiment in objections to allowing A. B. to stand 
for the completion of any reputable undergraduate college curric- 
ulum. 1^0 variations are demanded for the title of the university 
degree, Ph. J)., where much more definite distinctions could be 
shown, were there any need. The vital point is that neither under- 
graduate nor graduate degree be conferred for less than truly 
creditable work on the part of the student in every course for which 
he receives credit, and that a strong and ample course be offered 
in every case (as far as possible) on the part of the teacher. An 
aggregate of eighteen such credits for eighteen sucJi courses, under 
the system of free election properly required by modern conditions, 
would constitute more meritorious ground for the A. B. degree 
than any schedule of courses in particular subjects that was ever 
prescribed. 

The reader must be referred to President Eliot's book for an 
appreciation of the effect of the elective system upon the college 
teacher and professional scholarship in America. As he says, — 
"The attention of faculties and the public has been too often con- 
centrated on the effects of the elective system on young students; 
whereas its effects on teachers, and on the development of real 
scholarship throughout the country ought to have received more 



PROPER PROTECTION" OF COURSES 333 

attention, for it is there that its effects have been the most benef- 
icent." 

It is hardly necessary to explain that the proper sphere for the 
elective system is limited to the college of arts and sciences — the 
"philosophical faculty/' as it is called in Europe. In the profes- 
sional schools, curricula are necessarily prescribed. Freedom for 
specialization is even there allowable in undergraduate studies to a 
small extent ; but the very nature of the work requires that curric- 
ula leading to first degrees in law, medicine, engineering, etc., 
be prescribed in the main. Specialization within these professions 
must follow a common professional foundation. 

MistaJcen Devices 

The main principle for general administration in the matter 
of the teaching work performed by the philosophical faculty of 
a university, is reliance on the maintenance of a proper self-pro- 
tection by each course of instruction. The proper self-protection 
for any course consists in (1) only logical prerequisites for ad- 
mission, and (2) the requirement of genuine comprehension of the 
subject-matter of the course as the condition for crediting it in a 
student's record. It appears plainly to me that ^Vhat is more than 
these cometh of evil.'' Such self-defense is, also, the only sub- 
stantial protection of students against waste of time and deteriora- 
tion of character, and the only secure basis for intrinsically good 
and vigorous courses. 

A great variety of infractions of the principles I have just stated 
might be cited. The illogical requirement "open only to juniors and 
seniors," has been discussed.* The most widespread and deepest 
evils result from the arbitrary administrative interference in many 
colleges and universities, whereby a student is expelled** if he 
fails to receive credit in more than half of his courses. Any such 



*Page 328. 

**The word "expelled" is not used, but he is cast out. 



334 MISTAKE J^ DEVICES 

regulation inevitably debases the spirit and plane of teaching in the 
majorit}^ of the conrses. If a student attends all lectures and hon- 
estlv attempts all assigned exercises^ failure to master the course is 
not a proper subject for discipline. To treat it as such almost jus- 
tifies the usual consequent practice on the part of instructors, by 
which credit for a course comes to mean tlie minimum for toleration 
in residence. The effects are shameful and injurious at all stages, 
but they are pitiable for freshmen. It is upon the freshman that 
many abuses of the law-making power bear most heavily. He 
usually takes five courses. If he fails to make two or three, he may 
be expelled. In nine cases out of ten, he evidently deserves no 
such treatment. It is creditable to human nature that foolish 
laws are commonh^ evaded in favor of concrete justice. The fresh- 
man on ^the ragged edge' tells his instructor that he is failing 
in another course; the instructor must decide the concrete issue — 
expel the youth, or credit him with the course. Under a genuine 
standard for credits, sensible men would expect nearly the extent 
of failure by first-year students that the laws of some universities 
make a ground for ejection. If the student, through his first 
year's experience learns how to work effectively on his own respon- 
sibility he has done well. Many a freshman is ill-prepared, although 
graduated from the most over-regulated of affiliated schools. He 
may fail for the first term before he has at all ^found himself.' 
Such a failure in all courses should put him on probation, but 
need be no indication that he should be cast out. He may pass in 
several courses and the marks for several others may be so low 
that he cannot hope to lift them to the passing average by less 
than perfection during the next term. If he seeks the Dean's coun- 
sel, — what do we do? They come to us for bread and we give 
them stones; they ask for an Qgg and we give them a scorpion. 
In the numerous universities where such laws govern, crowds of 
students, especially first-year men during and at the end of the 
first term, are dropped from courses solely because of marks 



"dropping" 335 

received. If the number of courses retained be insufficient or on the 
danger line under the rule, the Dean helps them to shuffle into such 
fractional courses as may be offered and open to them under 
"group" and other regulations. At the same time, all such institu- 
tions commonly prohibit the student (even a senior) from dropping 
a course at his own option for valid reasons, such as the discovery 
that it is net at all what he wanted, or that it is weak and empty, 
or that pej'sonal antagonism has developed between student and 
teacher. 

Of course, in some cases it may be expedient for a student to 
drop, for the remainder of the year, a course in which he is not 
passing. But this will be the case for a freshman student (if the 
course was intrinsically desirable for him), only when the number 
of his class hours is too large for his ability, — and in such a case 
there should be no shuffle to a substitute course. Where the first 
course in a department is taught in three or more sections, one of 
the sections might well begin over again at the end of the first term 
for the benefit of students who fail to ^catch on^ and Tiit the pace^ 
promptly. That predicament will probably obtain for at least 
one-third of the class, if the course is approximately what it ought 
to be. Differences in native ability, in preparation, in versatility 
for adaptation to new environments, in accidental circumstances 
of getting settled or of first associations, and in various other 
conditions, make the start of freshmen very uneven. I conceive no 
reason why college faculties legislate with such apparent ignorance 
or disregard of palpable facts, except that the form of organization 
and administrative practices I have criticized conspire to stifle the 
counsels of the best men in the faculties, and cause natural leaders 
to be unheeded. 

In nine cases out of ten, the rational and morally sound advice 
to the young student who is failing to win passing marks would be : 
"Stick to it. To fail is no shame; only to fail to do your best is 
disgraceful. Failure in a first attempt, should teach you liow to 



336 NEGLECT OF WEIGHTIER MATTERS 

succeed ; and that is a great lesson. On the other hand, if the under- 
taking was a proper one, to give it up at a first failure leads to the 
most weakening habit you could fall into. If you fail in a course 
this year, do not accept permanent defeat. Take it over again, 
until you have mastered it. There is no other way to become a 
strong man.^- This is the morality and life-disipline approved by 
the conscience and experience of mankind. Yet the very opposite 
is taught by precept and by practice in many state universities. 
Those who should be guardians of a bright flame of inner truth 
and fortitude, are turning the eyes and hearts of youth to external 
measures of success: If the light that is in thee be darkness, how 
great is the darkness? "You must win the umpire^s score,^^ they 
say, "twist and turn, but procure the mark.^^ Is there any reason 
to wonder why it is hard for such colleges to prevent scandalous 
breaches of good faith on athletic fields; or that young men who 
might have been turned to honor and to the true joy of honorable 
sport, exult if they get the winning score no matter how ? 

The persons who have brought many of our institutions of higher 
education to such a pass, are very loud and pugnacious about what 
they call morality. In every sphere they seek to impose their 
opinions by force. They usually dominate the college Y. M. C. 
A.^s, heeding little or naught the principles of Him whose name 
they invoke. They talk as if a glass of beer led to perdition, 
and denounce penalties a;s fierce as they dare to infiict for 
every infringement of their negative ideas of virtue. The 
weightier positive matters of justice, mercy, and truth, temperance, 
and courage, they ignore; they "strain out the gnat, and swallow 
the camel.^' If either scholarship or manly character is to survive 
in institutions where such persons have had free swing, the time 
has come when there must be poured out upon them vials of such 
scorn as was poured upon those other ^^lind guides," who in their 
day and generation did their works to be seen of men, and made 
broad their phylacteries, and loved the chief seats in the synagogues, 



MISTAKEN DEVICES 337 

and the salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, 
Doctor. 

As I have said, the theory which lowers the credit for a course 
of instruction to the minimum of tolerance for residence (and 
thereby tends to lower the courses to emptiness or to "easy things 
to understand") — bears heaviest on the freshmen. The burdens put 
upon their shoulders are, verily, grievous to be borne. It is only 
by incessant compromising and evading of ostensible standards 
and explicit laws, that this theory leaves many freshmen survi- 
vors. In practice, the first-year men are driven to exertions which 
are often frantic and commonly exceed the eSort required in any 
succeeding year. Where administration of the character referred 
to has accomplished its perfect work, the habit of offering easily 
passed courses has spread to the advanced courses; and the lesson 
freshmen (and freshmaids) retain most vividly to their senior 
year, is the efficacy of ^cry-baby acts' when marks sink to the danger 
line. In the typical ease, accordingly, freshmen toil and moil, 
sophomores ease up a bit, juniors get gay, and seniors walk at 
leisure. 

I am reminded of the school in the sea attended by the Mock 
Turtle and the Gryphon: 

"And how many hours a day did you do lessons?" said Alice. 

"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Turtle, "nine the next, and 
so on." 

"What a curious plan!" exclaimed Alice. 

"That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "he- 
cause they lessen from day today." 

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little 
before she made her next remark. "Then the eleventh day must have 
been a holiday?" 

"Of course it was," said the Mock Turtle. 

"And how did you manage on the twelfth?" Alice went on eagerly. 

"That's enough about lessons," the Gryphon interrupted in a very de- 
cided tone; "tell her something about the games now." 



338 WONDERLAND 

This similitude from Wonderland is not fortuitous. If there 
were gods who did ^''smile in secret" as they ^lie beside their nectar'^ 
beholding what befalls "far below them in the valleys," what 
laughter would have filled the dome of Olympus when the Anglo- 
Saxon stolidly handed Gulliver's Travels and, again, Alice in Won- 
derland to his babes and sucklings ! They never touched him. 
The most blistering satire that was ever penned with the gall and 
bitterness of an indignant soul, on the one hand, and, on the other 
hand, the most delicate shafts of raillery that ever a kindly spirit 
aimed at a people^s follies, have been received by the English- 
speaking peoples without general perception of the purport of 
either. Both John Bull and Jonathan did, indeed, see that Dean 
Swift and Professor Dodgson had each written something to be 
noticed: but self-complacency or lack of humor proved impenetra- 
ble. So they printed both books by hundreds of thousands (some 
too bitter words of the Dean^s and some embarrassing queries of 
the Professor^s being cut out) in the dress of nursery manuals ; and 
these please our children, "like a tale of little meaning tho^ the 
words are strong." They are, verily, excellent reading for children 
— "holier Sinn liegt oft in hindscliem Spiel," but it is a pity that 
the grownups have left such shrewd views of their own mistakes 
and inconsistencies for the exclusive relish and profit of children. 
Let the little philosophers laugh and wag their heads over half- 
caught significances in Alice^s adventures ; but it were well if their 
elders would consider the kindly quizzing with more discrimina- 
tion and some intro-spection. 

If I could obtain effective influence with a professor of pedagogy, 
or with a professor of the art of education, or with a professor of 
the science of education, or with a professor of the art and science 
of education, I would induce him to offer a course in which the 
class would read Alice in Wonderland looking for the points. Mean- 
while I commend to students in American universities a perusal of 
the book. Wits will differ about particulars of the allegory; but 
if they merely read cursorily with the perception that the puzzled 



WONDERLAND 339 

and inquisitive Alice is the perplexed and inquiring Public, and 
that some of the wonders encountered in her explorations are the 
doings of various parties to our Educational System, — some bright 
glimpses will surely appear. For an experienced and reflective 
reader, with suitable mental endowments, the entire quizzical al- 
legory would render up its intended effect. Not everything is to be 
interpreted: much is atmosphere and nuance, more is medium; 
but all is benign, and the intended result will be realized in the 
way you feel about many processes that have been adopted as 
educational and about the ensuing attitudes and reactions of naive 
good sense. For instance (opening at random) : 

"Everybody says 'come on!' here," thought Alice, as she went slowly 
after it: "I never was so ordered about before in all my life, never!" 

Considering tvho and ivliere Alice is, perhaps some sympathy 
with a long-suffering public may awake in you. Or (choosing 
something fairly definite), surely the Caucus Eace has a bearing 
on the theory, prevailing in many regions of our wonderland, that 
every student ought to win credit for every course he takes at his 
first attempt, and that courses are not to be thought of which have 
not been adapted to the '^prizes for alF theory. Is it sensible to 
assume that every course of instruction should be within the mas- 
tery of every student who attends regularly and gives to it one- 
fifth of Ms time ; or to hold that the Professor ought not to tolerate 
in his presence a dutiful student who is failing to master the sub- 
ject-matter sufficiently to merit credit for the entire course, and 
that the Dean ought to expell such a student thus failing in half 
of his work? Maybe so; but if so, the Dodo was intelligent in 
inventing and deciding the Caucus Pace, and Alice was silly to 
wonder at its prizes : 

**What I was going to say," said the Dodo in an offended tone, "was, 
that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race." 

"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she much wanted to 
know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to 
speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. 



340 PRIZES FOR ALL 

"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." 
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle ("the exact shape 
doesn't matter," it said), and then all the party were placed along the 
course, here and there. There was no "one, two, three and away," but they 
began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was 
not ea-sy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been 
running half-an-hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly 
called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded 'round it, panting, 
and asking, "But who has won?" 

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of 
thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its fore- 
head (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures 
of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, "Every- 
body has won, and all must have prizes." 

"But who is to give the prizes?" quite a chorus of voices asked. 
"Why, she, of course," said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; 
and the whole party at once crowded 'round her, calling out in a confused 
way, 'Trizes! Prizes!" 

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her 
pocket, and pulled out a box of comfit-s, and handed them 'round as 
prizes. There was exactly one apiece, all 'round. 

"But she must have a prize herself, you know," said the Mouse. 
"Of course," the Dodo replied very gravely. 

"What else have you got in your pocket?" he went on, turning to Alice. 
"Only a thimble," said Alice sadly. 
"Hand it over here," said the Dodo. 

Then they all crowded 'round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly 
presented the thimble, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant 
thimble"; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered. 
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so 
grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think of any- 
thing to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn 
as she could. 

The next thing was to eat the comfits; this caused some noise and 
confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, 
and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. 

It may be probable that Professor Dodgson had in mind the 
elective system in describing the shape of the track for the Caucus 



PRIZES FOR ALL 341 

Kace and its lack of the "one-two-three" start and straight-away 
of a prescribed curriculum; but the main subject for frank con- 
templation is the idea prizes for all. Dodgson may have so mis- 
understood the elective system that he imagined it conduced to 
prizes (degrees) for everybody; but there is no reason why elected 
courses should be credited more loosely than prescribed courses, 
and, as has been clearly shown, there may be effective constraints to 
coherent elections. The fact is, a genuine elective system arouses 
or reinforces every tendency to eschew perfunctory crediting. It 
is evidently easier to deny credit, if need be, for a freely chosen 
course, than for a course the student was compelled to take; also, 
students will exert themselves more in order to make good their 
own choice, than they would if they were in a position to make the 
excuse of having been forced to distasteful work. The whole is 
made up of its parts, and a degree is simply the aggregation of 
credits for, say, twenty courses. If each course is strong and cred- 
ited only for approximate mastery, the degree will take care of itself 
as an honorable and significant prize. All good races need not be 
run over one and the same track. On the contrary, if it be deemed 
a reasonable aim (while making present allowance for evasion) 
that all who are permitted to hear a course should be winning full 
credit for it, then it is a practically necessary consequence that 
the degree approaches, pari passu as that aim is approximated, 
the character of a mere certificate of residence. The degrees of a 
college thus administered are very like the prizes of the Caucus 
Eace. 

If the preceding argument be candidly resisted, I believe it wiU 
be found that the resistance is based upon a tacit assumption that 
preparation may be made so nearly equivalent for all students 
that the ability of all to master any new undertaking will become 
nearly equal. Nothing of the sort is possible except for a group 
of picked men — picked by processes of elimination infinitely more 
severe than could be considered in this matter. Practically, there 
is a double fallacy in the assumption: (1) preparation can never 



342 SCAPEGOATS 

become so nearly equivalent for college students, and (2) if their 
preparation were supposed to be (by some magic) identical, still 
every new undertaking would bring out wide differences. Native 
ability, application, interest, extraneous circumstances, must cause 
differences nowise properly subject to disciplinary measures, which 
nevertheless would cause mau}^ to fall short of fairly mastering 
courses that required the mental attitude and activity which must 
distinguish the college student from the high school pupil if any 
proper advance is made beyond the stage of secondary schools. 
The only way to fit courses of instruction to the theory and 
practice I have exposed is to give courses not fit to be offered. 

How is it possible continually to pass off any intellectual per- 
formance as a creditable distinction, if you make failure to achieve 
it a ground of suspicion and censure ? I say censure, not disgrace, 
because some state universities in this nation have put it beyond 
their power to disgrace a man. If professors refuse to let respectful 
students listen to them, and faculties eject for mere failure to 
pass, expulsion from such a university is no more a disgrace than 
its degree is a distinction. 'There are States in which no more 
is thought of a young man's being sent home from the University 
than of a boy's exclusion from a boarding school; and the public 
opinion in the matter is correct. Moreover, laws of this sort are 
never squarely executed. There is no escape from the dilemma. 
If the rules of some catalogs were honestly carried out the institu- 
tions would forthwith be emptied of a third part of their boasted 
enrollments. Ugly details need not be depicted: the reader may 
imagine how students and instructors and deans twist and squirm 
to evade the expulsion ("dropping") alleged to be consequent upon 
a student's failure to pass in half of his work. Under such a 
regime, those who are cast out are mere scapegoats. 

American universities are approaching, or have arrived at, a 
fateful dividing of ways. They must decide and decide quickly. 
Will they proceed on the theory that every young man properly 



PARTING WAYS 343 

graduated from a college-regulated high school should (on pain of 
ejection) by average application and docile obedience to rules re- 
ceive a titled degree in four years; or, will they decide that their 
degrees shall have a different meaning? They may choose as they 
please, but, having chosen, it is fatuous to nurse the delusion that 
either the public or their students can be permanently hoodwinked. 
Graduation from the high school means nothing individually for 
the very reason that common dilligence and docility secure the issue. 
The class graduates. The high school method is not unsuitable 
for its stage; but if a "university" tries to lure its thousands upon 
any such terms, it must ultimately come to be known for what it so 
chooses to be — a preposterous high-high school, a retarder of natural 
gi'owth to manhood and to manhood's responsibilities. On the 
other hand, a university might say : We offer courses of instruction 
which may be profitably attended mthout reaching the standard 
upon which we certify a fair mastery of the subject-matter of a 
course; it should not be assumed that every dutiful student will 
win on schedule time the title of our degree; our degree signifies 
a genuine, substantial distinction that may be relied upon as a 
certificate of the ability and achievement for which it vouches. 
The titled graduates of such a university would not write letters 
that should shame a school boy, — such as are from time to time 
published by investigators in illustration of existing conditions, 
and are familiar to everyone who receives many letters from college 
graduates. The grammatical errors of many typical letters are 
their least censurable feature, and lack of logical and conventional 
arrangement is not their worst deficiency. The gross misuse of 
words and the inconsequent thought exposed in such letters, man- 
ifest deficiencies and incapacity that ought never to pass muster 
in any course on any subject in a university. As a matter of fact, 
the degrees of some institutions of large size and rich resources are 
coming to have no creditable signification. An individual holder 
of such a degree may have the attainments it purports to certify, 



344 STRONGER COURSES 

but many others offer the same certification who have never done 
anything that would have earned credit for one course^ much less 
twenty courses, in more honestly and more skillfully administered 
universities. 

The fundamental need for improved administration of the cur- 
riculum is stronger courses, and the main obstacles to the strength- 
ening of courses are such rules and regulations as have been ex- 
posed in this chapter. In advising stronger courses I refer to all 
courses that should be credited toward degrees. Under existing 
administration all courses offered are so credited, and it is alleged 
by most college presidents and deans (I believe libellously) that 
students will listen to nothing for which credit toward degrees is 
not given. It was not so in my day, and the change is probably 
more in the men who constitute the faculties, or in the rulers 
thereof, than in the young men. Deans and course committees 
would be saved some woeful perplexities in these days, if some of 
the courses now credited toward degrees were oiferd merely as help- 
full diversions interesting to some individuals. If not attended 
on such terms, such courses ought not to be offered at all. I be- 
lieve they would be attended by those who should attend them, if 
they were really worth attending. For instance, if it be deemed 
serviceable to offer information about the boy-scout "movement" 
(which appears to be a coming favorite in state universities), let 
a few lectures on the subject be offered without setting the bait 
and temptation of a credit toward degrees, — and without stretch- 
ing them out through a whole year. So many courses of this sort 
have crept into the curricula of state universities within the last 
few years that their degrees need heavy discounting in many cases, 
and, what is worse, a deplorable demoralization has set in, — al- 
though I do not believe it has reached the depth alleged by those 
who assert that students would no longer give heed to anything 
without credit marks for it in the registrar's office. If the accu- 
sation be true, it but adds a most urgent reason for instituting 
without delay the reform I have counseled. 



STRONGER COURSES 345 

I believe it is a mistake to suppose that tlie nnmher of desir- 
able students would be diminished, if the lure of prizes for aJl 
(who will be good) were not held out. If the true conditions 
were generally comprehended, the most important part of the 
public would not desire any such machine methods or results in 
the sphere of higher education. The characters of teachers and 
students and the quality of their work would surely be improved, 
and I believe the number of suitable students would be increased, 
if colleges ceased to treat failure to win credit for a course as if 
it implied either some disreputable fault or sad misfortune. Give 
congratulations for winning the credit; say nothing about failure, 
if attendance and exercises have been regular except to speak some 
word of encouragement or helpful criticism. There is no need to 
fear that students would often continue indefinitely, mastering 
nothing. N'ot many students are going to spend time and money 
unless they get something they suppose will be worth while. At 
the least, the truly disqualified would eliminate themselves from 
stronger courses far more ejffectively, than deans eliminate them 
from cheapened courses by "dropping" a few scapegoats. Failure 
per se is not a proper subject for disciplinary regulations in a uni- 
versity. If any instructor does not know how to teach unless all 
his hearers are mastering the entire course, drop him at the end 
of his engagement unless his abilities for some needed research 
warrant assigning him to work of that kind. 

If the issue thus raised is to be comprehended, it must not be 
confused with the altogether separate question of discipline for 
neglect of duties. Disciplinary rules dealing with legitimate sub- 
jects are, indeed, frequently injudicious — puerile, too arbitrary, 
too numerous; but that is a question totally apart from the mat- 
ter here considered. At every point I have made the proviso, if 
attendance and exercises have leen regular. In discussions of 
this matter with members of university faculties, it has some- 
times seemed to be impossible for my interlocutors to make the 
distinction absolutely necessary for understanding what the ques- 



346 IRRELEVANT OBJECTIONS 

tion was. In spite of the most explicit statement to the contrary, 
many have appeared to fancy that license to cut lectures and 
neglect exercises was advocated by the critic of their rules and 
practice. I have more than once been oppressed by a feeling of 
almost despairing pity for society, in view of the sheer intellectual 
impotence to comprehend the terms of a logical alternative (aside 
from the question of wise choice) manifested by some of the 
mature men called to be intellectual guides for the young men 
of the nation. The subject matter of the question being familar 
to them, if honesty in argument be assumed, the tenor of their 
arguments in private discussions and in printed essays, exposes an 
abnormal weakness of mind. If such a degree of infirmity of 
reason be incredible, the assumed honesty must be denied. I hope 
and believe that even non-professional readers will generally be 
able to see that the matter here submitted has nothing to do with 
the totally different question of how -idle and delinquent students 
should be dealt with. One may differ from me on the other 
grounds, and I will patiently reinforce my arguments, but if one 
differs by alleging that I propose to do away with all restraint 
against idling, there is nothing to say except that such an allega- 
tion is foolish if candid, and at all events untrue. 

The astonishing irrelevancy of many alleged arguments in be- 
half of the theory that a student who is not winning passing marks 
in a course should not be allowed to attend it, and if he is failing 
to win credit in half of his courses ought to be ejected from the 
universit}^, will excuse the superfluity of a particular illustration, 
in case it may assist some readers. Suppose a freshman student 
is carrying five courses including Latin, French, and Germ.an, and 
that these subjects are needed in a proper preparation for his in- 
tended life work. Suppose he has been perfectly regular in at- 
tendance, and diligent in effort for eyery exercise. One of the 
secrets of the educational efficacy of work in a foreign language is 
the fact that lack of accuracy is exposed relentlessly. In litera- 
ture, history, economics, etc., a student may be vague and yet pass 



ACCURACY 347 

muster. In writing a foreign language inaccuracy will cause hun- 
dreds of definite errors. Each stands out. It cannot hide. It is 
a fault of commission. There is no room for uncertainty or hesi- 
tation about estimating the gravity of faults of omission. Now 
suppose the student has some genuine talents which have carried 
him along swimmingly until he is confronted with the sterner 
demands befitting his increased age. It is true that the elemen- 
tary school and high school ought to have thought more of quality 
and less of quantity in their share of his schooling; but it may at 
least be said that the universities do not encourage them to do so. 
The day of reckoning must come. If postponed beyond college, 
it will come rather in wrath than in mercy. Certainly many 
freshmen students, whom it would be criminally absurd to send 
back to the high school and foolishly unjust to exclude from col- 
lege, have not learned the accuracy of thought and power of sus- 
tained attention required to win genuine credits for their first at- 
tempts at college courses in which accuracy is directly tested. 
Some persons, also, are naturally slow to develop linguistic adapt- 
ability if the period of childhood is not utilized (as it should be) 
for that purpose. Many begin to study the modern languages 
they need after coming to college. From one cause or another the 
student we are considering has his exercises returned to him cov- 
ered with red ink. He tries to do better, but loose habits are hard 
to replace by the steadfastly alert attention and critically logical 
analysis which are the only means of accuracy in any sphere. In 
this business every mistake brings immediate accountability, and 
herein is a great mercy. Many a student choosing some History- 
and-Political-and-Social-Sciences group, never discovers that in- 
accuracy is so confirmed in him by the time he receives the col- 
lege degree, that he could not make an exact copy of a printed 
paragraph even though aware that he was on trial.* If our stu- 



*Tliis is no imaginary supposition. I have tested many stenographers, 
some of them college graduates, by asking them to copy accurately a 
printed page. I have never found one who passed the ordeal — disregard- 



348 VALUE OF PERSEVERANCE 

dent is thus failing in one of his courses, why should he be forced 
to drop it? By hypothesis he is not overburdened in respect to 
health, or anything of that sort. There is no way by which he 
can learn to be accurate except by practice. His infirmity is not 
to be cured by repentance or postponement.* Morality and pru- 
dence would counsel him to persevere through the year, and he 
should be encouraged to see that he may thereby acquire the 
needed control of his faculties and carry the course easily next 
year as an extra. If the student were failing in like manner in 
more than half of his courses, why should he be ejected from 
the university? By hypothesis he is prepared for the university 
by age and in every respect except discipline of mind. The uni- 
versity is the place — and no other, and the present the time, for 
repairing the deficiencies in his training. His presence in a class 
interferes with nobody unless the instructor is very incompetent, 
preposterously irritable and egotistical, or stupidly cruel. The 
only complaint that arrant selfishness could reasonably make would 
the the instructor's loss of time in correcting poor exercises. It 
deserves no other answer than the remark that perhaps none of 
his teaching time is spent to much better advantage, and the re- 
tort that in the universities in which such abuses are mjost pro- 
nounced the custom is springing up of turning over all exercises 
to be examined and corrected (?) by student assistants. In my 
experience the men who cry out most loudly against dull or ill- 
prepared students in their classes contrive to shirk work of every 
sort, and waste much of the time they do give to teaching in 



ing typographical slips on letters in the body of words. Words or punc- 
tuation marks have always been changed or omitted, or syllables omitted 
or changed (such as -ed for -es in tense forms of verbs). I expected no 
better, and have simply directed the young man's attention to his infirmity 
and explained that it could be remedied only by a constant vigilance, 
adding that he must be handing in whole pages free from such slips within 
three months, or he would not be satisfactory. 

*If the truth is to be told, members of the faculty, not a few, share his 
fault — as is well known to everyone who has edited their contributions 
for cold print. 



ACCESSORY SYMPTOMS 349 

querulous and often insulting talk. AYliere such men or women 
flourish you always find rules prohibiting students from dropping 
a course or going to another section without the instructor's per- 
mission, else self-respecting students would leave the room of such 
a teacher. 

It is not possible to describe every significant symptom of the 
diseases which it is the main purpose of this work to diagnose. 
(In such matters a true diagnosis indicates the remedy.) Men- 
tion should be made, however, of a practice recently adopted in 
some universities whereby an instructor may turn over one of the 
three hours of each course, nominally offered by him, for a quiz 
conducted by a student who receives some petty pay for the work, 
e. g., $15 a month. Of course, the best men rarely take advantage 
of this permission; but those to whose unwisdom the enactment 
of injuriously restrictive laws for students and for secondary 
schools is largely due, avail themselves of the unseemly privilege 
very complacently. I say unseemly, because it reduces the legiti- 
mate time meaning of a "course," and substantially breaks an ex- 
press or implied pledge and agreement with other universities. 

To give many examples of the litter of minor statutes usually 
spawned by the main idea, would consume too much space. Such 
as the following are typical. They are taken from the catalog of 
a state university (claiming to be the greatest in a vast section of 
the United States) which began a departure from noble internal 
principles about fifteen years ago and has now accumulated nearly 
all the errors of organization and administration referred to in 
this book. Within recent years it has developed, in what the 
pathologists would call a pathognomonic case, nearly every known 
symptom of the causative disorders. 

(1) "Attendance on a course without leing registered for it is not 
allowed." No question of fees is involved in this rule, for "tuition is free 
in all departments of the University." 

Consider what conceptions of scholarship, of intellectual life, of uni- 
versity spirit must prevail in the administrative authorities, and in the 



350 ACCESSORY SYMPTOMS 

faculty committee created by them, who demanded the enactment of such 
a law. Imagine how profoundly discouraged and silenced must be the 
enlightened spirits in the faculty. Change the prevalent mode of organi- 
zation, and all this would quickly be changed. I have heard that the 
deans in this university recently discussed whether a member of the faculty 
might attend the lectures of a colleague.* The spiritual nausea suffered 
as I heard the account may have confused memory, but my memory is 
that it was said they decided it had better not be permitted. Probably 
no action was taken; the question could only have arisen in respect to 
some yet undampened spirit, new to the atmosphere of the place, who 
could easily be managed by suggestion. 

(2) "Such students are called special students, aiid may remain in 
the university only if they pass in all their courses." This refers to 
students over twenty-one years old who are permitted to take as few as 
three courses. 

I direct attention to this bit of law-making as a specimen for the student 
of morbid psychology. The law-making appetite grows by what it feeds 
on. One not addicted to this vice would naturally assume that special 
students, over twenty-one, might labor under deficiencies of regular prep- 
aration which might prevent success in the first attempt at some strong 
serious course. Having admitted such a man for an opportunity to get 
later in life instruction enjoyed by others at earlier periods, it is atrocious 
to forbid him to persevere for the conquest of a course in which he is 
failing at his first attempt. And what is it to declare that, on account 
of failure in one course, he shall not be allowed to complete other courses 
in which he may be gaining admirable results? As I have pointed out 
such a law is commonly evaded either by crediting the man with the 
course in which he is failing, rather than eject from the university a 
worthy man who is perhaps doing brilliantly in another course; or by the 
general weakening of courses and lowering of real standards until any 
student, however impotent, who attends regularly and hands in something 
for every exercise may be "passed." Those who attempt to justify this 
law will probably say that men over twenty-one years of age might, if 
permitted to fail in a single course, attend the university only to be on 
its football team. That argument need not be characterized. Evidently 
it is not necessary to eject from the university in order to remove from 



'Cf. p. 218; also p. 228. 



MEETING THE ISSUE 351 

a ball team. The latter question should be dealt with directly, and, indeed, 
is so dealt with by the rules governing athletics. 

The purpose and jnst purport of the references to existing con- 
ditions here presented^ would be totally misunderstood if any 
reader should be incited by the information either to helpless de- 
spair, or to impatient retributive measures. If members of gov- 
erning boards, for instance, were to undertake to replace faculty 
regulations with which they are disgusted by new rules drafted 
by the regents, a worse disorganization would be consummated 
than that which is the originating cause of the present evils. A 
college or university which has erred from right paths can be put 
in the way of genuine reformation and progress only by reorgan- 
izing measures such as have been indicated in previous chapters, 
and by securing a competent and magnanimous executive officer 
of the governing board. If the regents will act strictly within 
their proper sphere, if the president will not overstep his proper 
authority (preferring leadership to dictatorship), and if the fac- 
ulty be required to meet its proper responsibilty after powers 
usurped from it have been restored, — ^then, deans would be faculty 
officers, not presidential lieutenants ; committees would consult wise 
heads and deliberate candidl3\ and would not be flaccid conduits 
wherebj' extraneous designs may appear to arise in and from the 
faculty; and individuals would gradually acknowledge and meet 
their proper responsibilities, and no longer would members of the 
faculty who should be leaders neglect initiative and avoid debate. 

Meanwhile, there can be no successful skulking about the issues 
that have arisen. Every self-styled university must sooner or 
later come to be known for what it chooses to be. As yet, the 
public and governing boards generally only know that something 
is wrong; but a spreading and deepening dissatisfaction will pre- 
cipitate discussion in which the fact is going to come to light that 
many of the best young men who graduate from some universities 
axe gi'ieving over or resentful of a maladministration which they 



352 FUNDAMENTAL REMEDY 

feel has caused great personal loss to themselves and may deprive 
their own progeny and society in general of the benefits they sought 
and expected to receive when they went to college. 

The main danger lies in the propensity of the people to demand 
remedies from legislatures^ and from the impulse of members of 
governing boards when dissatisfied with the work of administra- 
tive officers to perform themselves things that belong to the faculty 
or ought to be done by an executive officer. Usurped authority 
is almost never exercised wisely. If the proper responsibility and 
corresponding authority of the faculty is not recognized by gov- 
erning board and chief executive, disorder follows in all spheres. 
The faculty deteriorates and seldom even attempts to meet its 
unrecognized responsibilities. The governing board is incompetent 
to discharge the function of a faculty^ nor can its executive offi- 
cers be harmlessly substituted for the faculty. 

It would be utterly intemperate to make the existence of the 
present evils a reason for refusing to establish conditions from 
which good results could grow. The worse anyone thinks of some 
present circumstance, the more urgent he ought to be for the estab- 
lishment of a proper organization — ^the only foundation for true 
improvement. There is no instant remedy for accumulated conse- 
quences of wrong organization and erroneous administration. The 
governing power can help only by establishing organic conditions 
that favor the healthful functioning of the faculty and of admin- 
istrative officers in their respectively proper spheres. If given fair 
opportunity, competent knowledge and good judgment should pre- 
vail.* Tiiae will be required; but to deny the reasonableness of 



*A notable example of the manner in which wise recommendations and 
pleas by college faculties have often been ignored by governing boards in 
the history of the American college, is afforded by a report of the faculty 
of Amherst College in 1826, If that report had been duly regarded it 
would have advanced the institution by more than half a century. Full 
extracts from the report are given in Foster's Administration of the Col- 
lege Curriculum. Instead of promptly following Virginia's lead, all that 
Amherst's faculty could secure "was a single option in the second term of 



CREDIT FOR QUALITY 353 

this hope would be absolute pessimism. To the confirmed pessim- 
ist there is nothing to sa}^ Under proper conditions, the faculty's 
best resources of skill and wisdom would spring into activity, and 
if a wise influence on the part of the chief executive be added right 
progress will be assured. Beyond the sphere of the legitimate 
executive authority (i. e., the execution of the legislative acts of 
the governing board) the mode of the president's leadership of the 
faculty must be that of honorable counsel, without suspicion of 
dictatorial purpose or implicit coercion. As for the methods of 
intrigue — he must be above suspicion. On no other terms is it 
possible for faculty meetings to be other than shams — feared or 
resented by all members who are both upright and intelligent. 

Credit for Qtiality 

From the beginning some open-eyed spirits have recognized 
that in American colleges, ^^the good scholar is placed nearly on 
a level with the sluggard; for, whatever may be his exertions, he 
can gain nothing in respect to time, and the latter has, in conse- 
quence of this, less stimulus for exertion." The words quoted 
were written in 1826 by Captain Partridge who had opened his 
Academy* at Northfield, Vermont, in 1820 with an elective system 
five years before the University of Virginia was opened to stu- 
dents. The Harvard faculty once made a proposal for recogniz- 



senior year, — Hebrew or Fluxions." By 1834, even that single elective had 
disappeared. "Thus perished," comments President Foster, "in the west 
of Massachusetts the hopes that were already blighted in the east [Refer- 
ring to Ticknor's attempt in 1823 to institute the elective system and 
lecturing at Harvard]. They were to rise again only with the rise of 
a new generation." 

*Foster tells of the "great and immediate popularity" of the worthy 
institution, in which, within a period of three years, "nearly twelve hun- 
dred students enrolled, of whom there were over one hundred from South 
Carolina alone." Evidently its scientific studies and elective system met 
a need that the then existing college ignored. "Yet," says Foster, "Yale 
and Trinity appear to have prevented Captain Partridge from securing a 
Connecticut charter and the privilege of granting degrees." 



354 CREDIT FOR QUALITY 

ing the principle : "A man whose work is of high grade should 
not he required to take so many courses as a man whose work is 
of low grade." 

That qnaiity ought to be recognized and appreciated as an in- 
trinsic fact is to my mind a fundamental principle, which will 
scarcely be openly disputed. Even this general principle is covertly 
resisted by those foes of genuine education (and of genuineness 
in every sphere) who are either the originating or the instrumental 
causes of all the worst features of the inner work and life of our 
colleges and universities; but there may be difference of opinion 
among better men, whether recognized good quality of a students 
work should have the particular effect of reducing the number of 
courses required for a degree. In the great majority of institu- 
tions there is no regard for quality in respect to the number of 
courses required for the undergraduate degree. Everyone who 
comprehends the facts knows that the grade marks A and B ought 
to signify and generally do signify not only immensely better qual- 
ity of work, but also much greater quantity of work than marks 
C and D; nevertheless, usually the fixed number of C's and D's or 
of A's and B's indifferently brings the same degree. In some in- 
stitutions degrees are given with and without distinction, or 
"honors"; but — with several exceptions — excellence has no effect 
upon the time required to make the degree. Indeed, the prevalent 
practice often leads to superficiality on the part of those who take 
the degree in less than four years, because time may be reduced 
by doing passable work in an extra number of courses, but cannot 
be reduced by doing work of better quality and greater quantity 
m fewer courses. 

Harvard offeres a slight credit-for-quality by excusing students 
who get C, or higher grade, in freshman English from the half- 
course in English Composition exacted of all others. 

The University of Xorth Dakota tried for six years the follow- 
ing plan — similar to the Chicago plan — and then abandoned it: 
Every student, to graduate, must win a number of "honor points" 



CREDIT FOR QUALITY 355 

equal to the number of semester-hours required for the dgeree. 
Each A carries three honor points per semester-hour; B, two; C, 
one; D, none. This demands an average of C for graduation. 
Students averaging B are allowed to take 18 hours a week, or six 
courses a year ; but there is no credit-for-quality in this plan. The 
time of residence is not reduced by high marks. — one is merely 
permitted to reduce the time by a part of one year if he can carry 
always one extra course. 

The University of Xortli Dakota abandoned its attempt to ex- 
act good quality of work for the alleged reason that members of 
its faculty ^^gave to an absurdly large number of students the 
'surplus credit' marks of A or B."* This reminds me, as Presi- 
dent Foster remarks, of the argument against the elective system, 
that students^ free to choose^ take snap courses^ — as though the 
fact, if true, were to be charged to the elective system and not to 
an administration which suffers weak or worthless courses to be 
offered. I shall point out improvements in adminstration that 
tend to correct the substantial fault. 

A genuine credit-for-quality plan involves such credit for excel- 
lent marks as may reduce the time to three years for students of 
best ability. Suppose 20 courses pursued with medium ability be 
required for the degree. If these be valued, say, at 160 credit 
points, then 0=8 points. If A=12, B=10, C=-8, J)=6, E—O; 
then 20 courses, each made with grade C would give 160 points, 
or 5 A's and 10 B's, or 1 A and 14 B's and 1 C, or 3 A's and 8 
B's and 4 C's and 2 D's, etc. It might be advantageous to refuse 
to give any credit for more than 2 D's in one year. There would 
be almost as many combinations as students, and some would find 
themselves with slight surplus credits. The latter fact would do 
no harm : it will seem objectionable only to trivial minds. 

Systems of this kind have been adopted by several colleges — 
notably by the University of Iowa and Eeed College, and it may 



*Prof. E. F. Chandler of N. D. Univ., quoted by Foster. 



356 CREDIT FOR QUALITY 

be hoped that the example and experience of the University of 
Missouri will have a growing influence. 

The University of Missouri has^ I believe^ the best administered 
genuine credit-for-quality system. The plan is substantially the 
same as the plan I have suggested in more familiar terms, and in, 
perhaps, more clearly expressed numerical relations. In the Uni- 
versity of Missouri the marks in undergraduate courses are E, S, 
M, I, F (Graduate students are reported simply "passed^^ or "not 
passed") : 

"E means that the individual is one of the few most excellent students. 
. . . The grade of Excellent will be given to the few students who have 
manifested unusual ability in a particular branch of study. ... S is 
given to those students who impress the instructor as being superior to 
approximately 75 per cent of all students who have pursued this study 
during recent years. . . . M means that the student ranks among 
the medium students, approximating 50 per cent of each class. . 
Below the grade of M, the grade of I means that a student is somewhat 
below the medium, ... a student who impresses his teacher as being 
inferior to 75 per cent of all students in this particular branch of study. 
The grade of F [failure] places the student among those ranking lowest. 
. . . Students may not be permitted to take up work for which their 
inferior work is preliminary. The professor of the department in which 
the student wishes to take the new course will decide upon such cases 
individually. He may require additional preparation, but the grade orig- 
inally recorded on the student's grade card will not be changed. . . . 

"For each recitation hour for which the grade of Excellent is recorded, 
the student will receive 30 per cent additional credit [50 per cent in the 
scheme above]. For each recitation hour for which the grade of Superior 
is recorded he will receive 15 per cent [25 per cent in the scheme above] 
additional credit towards graduation. The faculty further recognizes that 
those students who are inferior to seventy-five in a hundred, but whose 
work is not estimated by the teacher as a complete failure, are entitled 
to some credit. Students will, therefore, be given four-fifths [75 per cent 
in scheme above] of the normal credit towards graduation for each reci- 
tation hour for which the grade of Inferior is recorded."* 



University of Missouri Catalogue, 1911-12 (or 1912-13). 



GEADTNG 357 

Moral reasons of deep and far-reaching nature support such a 
system, while its most immediate objects are to encourage students 
to do the best work of which they are capable, and to permit the 
most capable to graduate in three years. 

How vastly better is this way of meeting the public's justified 
dissatisfaction with the uniform requirement of four years, than 
President Butler^s proposal to reduce the college period for all stu- 
dents, or than Harvard's ineffectual steps in reducing the number 
of courses required (from 20 to 17) and attempted raising of en- 
trance requirements. In the latter plan, neither half-step goes 
far enough to be effectual from its side. Moreover, a real raising 
of entrance requirements properly covering a year's study would 
not truly reduce the required time at all; three and one make 
four as well as two and two. The inordinate time consumed by 
the American system of public education is due to spending eight 
years in the elementary school on ground that would be better 
covered in six years.* 

Orading 

Many articles and some books have recently appeared discussing 
what the writers have called "scientific" distribution of grades. 
The prominence given to talk about the normal probability curve 
— embellished with diagrams of that curve associated with other 
curves skewed according to various hypotheses — has obscured a 
plain common-sense matter. It has led to misconceived proposals 
in many faculties, and may lead som,e of them to injurious action. 

N'ot long ago the "Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences"** 
of a large state university called a meeting of the college faculty 
to explain scientific grading. He announced that the method he 
would expound had been practiced for some years very successfully 
by the University of Missouri^ citing also Eeed College and Presi- 



*See Note on Elementary Schools at the end of this chapter. 
**See pages 239-240. 



358 GEADT>^G 

dent Foster^s book. He proceeded with a jaunty attempt to startle 
benighted minds into conceiving the sway of Probability over all 
mundane events. (Some of his hearers understood as well as he 
the mathematical formulse of probability, and it may be hoped that 
the majority of them understood better than he the proper signifi- 
cance and applicability of the doctrine.) In the manner of men 
who think they know how to make school boys ^sit up and listen/ 
he told them that they could calculate the value of Pi by throwing 
silver dollars at a crack in the floor. His exordium need not be 
further described. He proceeded to tell them that at the Uni- 
versity of Missouri the highest mark was given to a fixed per- 
centage of each class, the next mark to another fixed percentage, 
and so on, maintaining the propriety of such a method with vari- 
ous jokes and serious invocation of probability curves. A few 
members of that faculty still make dwindling endeavors to debate 
committee reports and even to question the proposals of appointed 
deans. But to several protests, that the proposed performance 
would frequently be both unreasonable and immoral, and that 
often a class had no member who deserved A and sometimes none 
who deserved E, the smiling dean replied that he could see no 
question of morals and that the Professor was forgetting the scien- 
tific character of the marks. He actually went on to say that it 
would make no difference whether the instructor or the registrar 
gave the marks ; that the instructor might simply report the names 
of the students in the order of their class standing and the regis- 
trar could give the A's, B's, C's, D's, and E's in the fixed propor- 
tions. In this peculiar exaggeration, the Dean may have been 
carried beyond his intention, but the matter was not elucidated 
and there was no further discussion. The Dean made a few more 
jokes and vouchsafed a few more crumbs of information about 
probability and curves, in a rather disheartened way (being by 
nature kindly and accommodating) as if discouraged by the slow- 
ness of his hearers. He then brought the meeting to an end by 
asking a member lately called from Missouri to tell them before 



THE MISSOURI PLAN 359 

adjourning how the Missouri faculty liked its system. Whether 
from lack of knowledge or from timidity the man called upon did 
not con-ect the Dean's misstatement of the University of Mis- 
souri's practice. He merely answered that he believed the great 
majority approved the plan and that it worked satisfactorily. I 
witnessed this humiliating scene, as a visitor at the invitation of 
the President. The President presided over the meeting, but made 
no comment except to thank tlie Dean for his instructive explana- 
tion of a vexed question. 

It is true (as some one has said) that it is every man's busi- 
ness to know^ his business and if he does not he hasn't any business 
to be in his business, but the disorganization and arbitrary admin- 
istration of most American universities renders ignorant or foolish 
proposals in their faculties as dangerous as they are in political 
campaigns and before legislatures. In this instance probably few 
of the Dean's hearers will give any careful thought to the matter, 
or even discover his misrepresentation of the Missouri plan. Mean- 
while, the growing good repute and prestige of the University of 
Missouri commend measures attributed to it, and some good men, 
yet too indolent to examine things for themselves, would support 
a measure so recommended. 

Let us understand the simple facts as to w^hat is done in the 
University of Missouri, — iwhose practice President Foster avers 
constitutes "the most scientific distribution of actual college credits 
ever made," which, he says, ''means that we come nearer to know- 
ing what a grade stands for at the University of Missouri than 
at any other institution in the country." The gist of this state- 
ment is doubtless true, but there is little or no propriety in the 
talk about "scientific" grading. It would be clearer and more 
appropriate, to say that the plan is more intelligent and more in- 
telligible than others and yields results more nearly just and true. 
But what is this sensible way? The exposition by the Dean is no 
less absurd — though less monstrous — than if he had advised a leg- 
islature to adjust the death rate of citizens of respective ages to 



860 THE MISSOURI PLAN 

foreordained probabilities. The University of Missouri does no 
such thing. 

In the first place the proportion of no mark is fixed for ever}^ 
class, bnt, as stated in the catalog the Dean claimed to be explain- 
ing, the proportions refer to the experience of each instructor with 
''all students who have pursued this study during recent years." 
In the second place, no proportion at all is assigned for the mark 
meaning excellent: "E means that the individual is one of the 
few most excellent students; the grade of Excellent will be given 
to the few students who have manifested unusual ability in a par- 
ticular branch of study.^^ This second point is perfectly clear in 
Foster^s description of "Scientific Grading at the University of 
Missouri/' in the book cited by the Dean. In regard to the first 
mentioned misrepresentation, Foster's book might seem in one 
sentence to fall into the Dean's error, but the facts are restated 
several times correctly in the following pages. The sentence re- 
ferred to reads: "According to the definitions adopted in 1908, 
grades A+B must equal 25 per cent; grade C, 50 per cent; and 
grades D-{-E, 25 per cent of the total number given by each in- 
structor."* But Foster immediately makes it evident** that by 
the 25 per cent which A-j-B "'must equal," he means only to refer 
to the fact that — except for the "few most excellent students" 
who may receive A, — "S \i. e., B] is given to those students who 
impress the instructor as being superior to approximately 75 per 
cent of all students who have pursued this study during recent 
years." 

Finally, for small classes reasonable and honest grading seldom 
approximates the scale adopted as a general norm. Mathematical 



*He makes the footnote: "The symbols used at the University of Mis- 
souri are E, S, M, I, F." See page 356, supra. 

**Foster's account of the grading in the University of Missouri is ap- 
proximately correct; but the story told on page 288 is an absurdity, and 
must have been somehow confused by him. It could hardly have been told 
to him as a joke. Neither the governing board nor the faculty of the Uni- 
versity of Missouri ever passed a man not passed by his instructor. 



THE MISSOURI PLAN 361 

probability comes into this matter only in the sense that the scale 
adopted was tentatively determined from an examination of the 
records of four previous years. I say tentatively, because future 
experience may indicate need of altering the apportionments. 
This, indeed, is probable unless it happened that in the averages 
for the past the errors of unchecked individuals so compensated 
each other that careful attention to the matter will discover no 
need of adjustments. In any event, it seems likely that reasons 
for some difference between the normal apportionments for fresh- 
men and the apportionments for higher classes may appear. 

The most important feature in the administration — as distin- 
guished from the design — of the Missouri plan has not yet been 
mentioned: The statistics of the grading of each teacher are 
compiled and reported to all members of the faculty. Each is ex- 
pected to explain and justify (to himself) or to amend any con- 
siderable deviation from the proportions adopted as normal. If 
some "easy^^ grader should imagine that a group of very superior 
students had chosen to attend a course in which he has given an 
abnormal proportion of high marks, he can find out how the same 
students are doing in their other courses, — or vice versa. This 
reasonable and worthy administration of the plan has secured con- 
tinually improving results. Perhaps there are members of the 
faculty who could not explain, and still do not understand, the 
plan by which each is supposed to test and criticise his own im- 
pressions ; but comprehension and approval have grown since Foster 
reported that, although about 90 per cent of the members of the 
faculty who in 1910 answered his inquiry approved the plan after 
several years experience, fifteen "think that the effect is to dis- 
courage the efforts of some students.^' It need only be remarked 
that, if any students were discouraged, it was because they were 
allowed to imagine that the marks would be given to fixed por- 
tions of the class. Intelligent young men with high principles 
would, indeed, if they were free to act, leave an institution under- 
stood to be committed to such stupid misrepresentation. 



362 GRADING 

The fundamental principles which must be made clear and 
heeded, if benefits are to be secured, are : 

1. The matter must be dealt with reasonably. 

The proportions adopted as normal must be treated as tentative, and 
adjustments should be made if well supported tendencies appear to per- 
sist in deliberately justified variation from the normal. Of course, the 
truth in each individual case, if discerned, must be reported without regard 
to the assumed probability. 

2. The work to be graded must mean attainment, not effort. 

This vital principle is grievously sinned against in America at all edu- 
cational stages. Emasculated morals, in which false sentiment has been 
engendered, induce many university professors to vouch for proficiency in 
mathematics or chemistry or history because the student keeps regular 
hours and is submissive to all rules intended to govern conduct. The vice 
has so grown by what it feeds on that professors are not scarce who, con- 
versely, bear false witness against the real attainments of students who 
cut lectures as far as permissible, or are suspected of indulgences in any 
sort of frowned-upon escapades. Whatever may be alleged against college 
athletic sports in America, they uphold the truth in the important sphere 
of life and morals in which intentions cannot be honestly substituted for 
achievement. Diligent effort and dutiful conduct without the required 
prowess do not win places on football teams, — conduct and attainment are 
not confused or falsely reported. 

3. The grading of every teacher and the general averages must be pub- 
lished within the faculty, and each member should compare the facts and 
justify (to himself) or amend his practice. 

There is no legitimate obstacle to the immediate trial of such 
a plan. The practical obstacles, I believe are (a) Lack of interest 
in the administration of the curriculum' on the part of faculties 
consequent upon the loss of genuine responsibility and commen- 
surate authority, (b) Proper resistance to muddle-headed pro- 
posals made by quidnuncs who have heard of something new, but 
will not take the trouble to comprehend what they undertake to 
advocate. 

If the three fundamental principles are duly regarded, any rea- 
sonable normal for the frequency of the respective marks may be 



GRADING 363 

assumed, subject to future correction or verification. In the Mis- 
souri plan, every instructor is admonished to justify or to adjust 
persistent deviation of his grading from the following normal : 

The "Superior" grades, plus the exceptional "Excellent" if any, approxi- 
mate 25 per cent of large undergraduate classes. 

The "Medium" approximate 50 per cent of large undergraduate classes. 

The "Inferior" plus the "Failure" approximate 25 per cent of large 
undergraduate classes. 

If this scale errs, as a norm, it is excessive at the top. I would 
prefer to let 

A-+-B approximate 20 per cent in large undergraduate classes. 

C approximate 50 per cent in large undergraduate classes. 
D+E approximate 30 per cent in large undergraduate classes. 

The word "definition^^ ought to be avoided in every statement 
or explanation of such a plan, lest it be taken in its strict mean- 
ing. President Foster opens himself to this for those who lack 
the modicum of common sense that would preserve them from the 
misunderstanding. For instance, after concluding that the nor- 
mal probability curve would better be "skewed as indicated in Fg- 

ure 20" so as to make 

A=: 2 per cent. 

B=18 per cent. 

C=50 per cent. 

D=24 per cent. 

E= 6 per cent. 

he suggests "an elastic definition of the grades : 

"A=: — 6 per cent. 
B=15 — 21 per cent. 
C=45 — 55 per cent. 
D=:20 — 25 per cent. 
E= 0—10 per cent." 

Foster does not really mean that either his "elastic'^ or inelastic 
( ?) scale consists of definitions in the strict sense, for he says 



364 GEADIl^G 

that every member of the faculty should be required to adhere 
closely to the "adopted definition in the long run," — which neces- 
sarily implies that the thing adopted is not a strict definition. He 
also says: "Every instructor should be required to justify his 
eccentricities, at least in a series of years." But, then, what need 
or room is there for the "elastic definition ?^^ There will be some 
classes in which less than 15 per cent or more than 21 per cent 
will be superior to the medium attainment, or in which less than 
20 per cent are inferior, or in which more than 10 per cent fail. 
The loose use of the word definition does not obscure for an alert 
reader the plan he recommends, but it is a matter of fact that 
some writers and many talkers have misunderstood him. 

President Foster's exposition would have been more serviceable 
if he had eschewed the destriptive term "scientific,^' said nothing 
about curves, and invoked probability merely to base an assumed 
normal on the experience of past years. I protest, moreover, that 
there is no propriety in his speculations about supplanting this 
method, which he advocates for the nonce, through "the discovery 
of units of measurement in every school subject, and the construc- 
tion, by scientific m^ethods, of scales that can be applied as the 
foot-rule is now applied, regardless of time, or place, or persons.'** 
He is of the opinion: "Measurements of results \i. e. the attain- 
ments of college students] with quantitative precision will be 
made as soon as people know enough to demand such measure- 
ments." I do not know whether this is exaggerated "democracy" 
or rhapsody; but it might as soberly be said that the people will 
get the moon as soon as they know enough to cry for it. It is cer- 
tainly a far cry to base on Professor Thorndike's scientific tests 
and measurements a notion that "equal units" can be discovered 
whereby we shall measure with "precision" the concrete perform- 
ances of individual minds in respect to scholarly attainments. 
Again, — with reference to the best plan we can follow until the 



^Interested readers are referred for side lights to Alice in Wonderland. 
See pages 338-341 supra. 



GR.VDTNG 365 

people know enough to demand the discovery of "equal units," — 
it is true enough that, "In any group of individuals representing 
a single species, the distribution of any trait not then influenced 
by natural selection appears to be that of a chance event, and the 
surface of frequency for that trait approaches that of the probabil- 
ity integral." But what has this to do with justly appraising the 
actual attainments of an individual student ? Mastery of a course 
of study is not an affair of one trait or simple sum of traits, nor 
has the influence of selection (as he indicates repeatedly) been 
eliminated. By skewing the probability curve, one can, of course, 
after the events, make a frequency surface to fit the mass resultant 
of an immense number of any sort of somewhat similar events; 
but it would be monstrous foolishness to confer college degrees or 
to withhold them according to the frequency of the degrees earned 
by a group of other individuals. The antecedent frequency, be it 
noted, was assumed to have been justly determined by intrinsic 
judgments upon the performances of those individuals, else the 
normal probability curve could not have been skewed to fit the 
case. Hence, the said curves, normal or skewed, refer to a prob- 
ability which can be intelligently employed only to check devia- 
tions that result from carelessness or poor judgment. Such a 
check is very useful, and it is for this reason that the simple plan 
I have described is submitted for consideration. There is nothing 
especially scientific about it; it belongs to the wider categories, 
reasonable and prudent. 

The most important scientific view in the matter of grading 
the attainments of college students is the loiowledge that such 
marks as 69-J, or even such as 83, are devoid of true discrimina- 
tion. I have heard of a recent instance in which a degree was de- 
nied to a law student, who stood well in his other courses, on 
account of a deficiency in an examination on one subject of one- 
half of a "point" below the passing grade. The professor, in 
sternly resisting the remonstrance of a committee of his colleagues, 
nursed in all sincerity a delusion of Roman virtue on his part; 



366 GIL4.DING 

whereas it is a fact that he probably could not regrade the papers 
of that class with less than an average difference of five of his 
points for the two sets of marks. This fact has been proved. All 
teachers ought to know it. The notions and practice of a great 
many of them involve, in some respects, such a mistake as would 
be made if one went through a building estimating the length and 
breadth of each room in inches, instead of in feet or yards. 

Professor Starch, of the University of Wisconsin, has reported* 
that the grades assigned to two English papers by 142 teachers of 
English ranged from 64 to 98 for one of the papers and from 
50 to 98 for the other, and the grades given a mathematics paper 
by 118 teachers of mathematics ranged from 28 to 92. The grades 
given by 10 instructors of freshman English, all in one university 
(Unv. Wis.), to 10 papers written in a final examlination showed 
about the same average variation from the mean, — ^5.3 as com- 
pared with 5.4 for the Eng. and math, papers first mentioned. 
Prof. Starch states that the range was also as great, but if so 
the minimum 28 w^hich he gives for the paper in mathematics is a 
misprint. The 10 instructors referred to endeavor to have uni- 
formity in their sections and the same final examination is given 
to all. One of the tables gives grades assigned originally and again 
after an interval to the same papers by the same instructors, each 
for students in his own section. The difference between the marks 
assigned at different times to the sam'e papers by the same teacher 
is on the average 4.4, and is about the same for all subjects — 
mathematics, language, physical sciences. The instructor who 
varied least used "a purely mechanical method of grading, deduct- 
ing so many points for each kind of error." He thus varied less 
from his previous grades, but it should not be imagined that his 
marks were more just. 

We need go no further into this subject. Professor Starch in- 
fers that "the smallest distinguishable step that can be used with 



'Science, Oct. 31, 1913. 



GRADING 367 

reasonable validity is roughly 5 points.'' Hence the marking scale, 
instead of being 100, 99, 98, 97, etc., should be 100, 95, 90, 85, 
etc.; these, he argues, "are the smallest divisions that can be used 
with reasonable confidence by a teacher grading his own pupils/' 
For my part I deem the whole idea of equal quantitative grada- 
tions (on any scale) inapplicable to this matter in any substantial 
sense. There is an important truth in the facts adduced in 
abundance by Professor Starch and many others, but that truth 
bears mainly on the falseness of impossible distinctions and on the 
folly of every petty way of grading. Let the teacher keep private 
memoranda in number s^anbols, if he thereby helps his memory 
and judgment; but let him know that he is responsible for form- 
ing at the end of the course a fair estimate of the quality of each 
student's work, or at the least for determining truthfully, without 
qualitative distinction, whether or not the course ought to be 
credited. I judge that estimates of quality will be best formed 
and expressed by some such system as that used in the Univer- 
sity of Missouri; and that the crediting of a course is rightly 
determined only by deciding at its end whether or not the student 
holds in his mental grasp a fair approximation to what mlay be re- 
garded as the proper permanent residuum of the subject-matter 
of that course, — I mean those essential results of the course as 
designed and conducted which ought to be more or less perma- 
nently retained, say for a year at least. The professed scholar and 
teacher who does not know how to discern such essentials is mis- 
taken in his profession and unfit for the position he occupies. It 
will never do to claim that a university teacher cannot find out 
these vital facts in the majority of cases. It is one of his respon- 
sibilities. If he sees the obligation and takes reasonable steps to 
meet it, he will succeed in proportion to his scholarship, good 
sense, and manliness. The abuses now prevalent have sprung from 
wrong conceptions imposed by custom and from the tangles of ^red 
tape' imposed by arbitrary legislation. 



368 GRADIN^G 

Two espesially demoralizing practices should be mentioned be- 
fore leaving this topic. 

In some cases from individual choice^ in others from weak sub- 
mission to faculty resolutions or administrative requests, some col- 
lege teachers deduct a fixed number of points for every absence not 
excused on account of sickness. The effect of any absence upon 
the attainments testified to by a teacher when he credits a course 
is not a fixed quantity, but in any case is the same whatever the 
cause of the absence. Absences are amenable to disciplinary con- 
trol; but whenever they mechanically determine report on scholar- 
ship, it means that the teachers so reporting either do not care 
much whether they tell the truth or not, or consent to falsify at 
some impertinent request or at the behest of a majority vote. Such 
conduct announces to the students not only that the teacher does 
not desire to find out the truth, but also that he will deliberately 
bear false witness in certain events. There is only one way in 
which sound young men regard such devices; no sophisry can 
blind them until they have lost the virtues native in them or 
learned through the example and precepts of honorable associates. 

In some universities there are teachers of ever}^ rank who turn 
over the grading of all written work (exercises and examinations) 
to cheaply employed students — often little or not at all advanced 
beyond students whose work they estimate. Sometimes it is ar- 
ranged that one of the young judges shall grade Answer No. 1 of 
all papers, reading no more of any paper; another, Ans. No. 2, 
and so on. In examinations requiring discursive answers it is 
necessary to read the whole paper to estimate it fairly, yet this 
objection is ignored, like all others, in these conscienceless prac- 
tices — conscienceless from their roots to all their branches. Of 
course, the best members of faculties are not guilty of such things ; 
but the practice is spreading in some of our universities VikQ a 
vile parasitical infection, and it is one of the distinct grounds for 
that moral disgust and indignant or sorrowful resentment which 



ADMISSION REQUIREMEN^TS 369 

is becoming evident* in tlie most virile young men now attending 
or who have recently left sucli colleges. 

Admission Requirements 

It is not worth while to give details of the confused mass of 
regulations governing admission to American colleges. They are 
in a worse state than the requirements for graduation. The source 
of the trouble is the same for both — misconceived ideas about uni- 
formity and democracy v^dth readiness to enforce agitated opinions 
by reckless legislation. Despotic extremes appear in some of the 
State Universities, but it will suffice to refer to the conditions that 
have come to pass in a comparatively conservative and carefully 
administered endowed university, as desci'ibed in a very temperate 
report made in 1910 by the Chairman of the Com.mittee on Ad- 
mission, of Harvard University: 

"In presenting my annual reports as Chairman of tlie Committee on 
Admission, it has seemed best to me to use the opportunity they give me 
to point out some of the ways in which the theories embodied in our rules 
for admission work out in actual practice. This leads me to seem, per- 
haps, to emphasize unduly the defects in our system; but as my work 
gives unusual advantages in seeing the effects of our regulations upon boys, 
teachers, and schools, it has seemed to me that I could be most useful by 
setting forth what I have learned from that experience. Without actual 
contact with individual applications for admission, no one, I believe, can 
realize the infinite variety of conditions to which our rules are applied: 
and that contact reveals mat college prescriptions oftentimes have quite 
different effects from those they are intended, and supposed, to produce. 
. . . For every one of its prescriptions, considered by itself, the College 
can plausibly urge that it is made in the interest of sound education; but 
any one whose work compels him to enforce these prescriptions, and who 
is thereby brought face to face with individual boys and teachers, soon 
learns that rules made for hypothetical boys do not work as they are sup- 
posed to work when applied to actual boys, and that the total effects of 
college prescriptions in actual practice may be summarized under the fob 



*Cf. pp. 351-352. 



370 Admission Eequirements. 

lowing heads, no one of which can be regarded as characteristic of sound 
education : 

1. Over-pressure among students. 

2. Restraint in using the best methods among teachers. 

3. Distortion of curricula. 

4. Greneral emphasis on facts and knowledge rather than on thought 
and power. 

5. Low standards of scholarship. 

"It was not, however, upon these effects of our admission system that 
I wished to dwell. I have called attention to them merely to emphasize 
the point which I wish to make, that regulations which considered by 
themselves seem unquestionably good may, when taken together with other 
regulations, exert effects quite contrary to those intended, and that there 
is a much greater discrepancy between our theory and its practical work- 
ing than most people suppose. The effects to which I wish to call atten- 
tion this year are the effects of our admission system upon quality of 
scholarship in Harvard College, none of which were intended, but which 
follow naturally from our regulations. . . . 

"I wish to present some experience of the Committee on Admission 
which goes, I think, to show that our system tends: — 

"1. To restrict the field from which good students may be drawn, and 
therefore to depress the average quality of a class. 

"2. To confine within a restricted field the students selected to those 
who have received their training in a particular type of school, 

"3. To restrict our students to those who have been subjected to influ- 
ences which help to make them look on study not as good in itself but 
merely for what it brings. 

"Anything which restricts the range of choice lowers the average quality 
of men chosen in each successive class. There are, of course, other reasons 
beside our system of admission to account for the facts shown by the fig- 
ures; but any one who administers correspondence about admission will 
soon learn that the system of admission is the most powerful factor in 
producing these facts. . . . The different tables given indicate, I believe, 
that our system of admission in its practical working tends to restrict 
students in Harvard College to those whose school training has been 
within the small part of the country which can come under the direct 
influence of our system of admission, and within that field to students 
who have been trained in the type of school known as the preparatory 
school. . . . ,' ; 



ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS 37 I 

'•In the administration of admission to college, it is very noticeable that 
as a class teachers in preparatory schools desire the college to specify 
minutely what boys must do in order to obtain admission to college, the 
reason being that they have found college requirements the most effective 
arguments in persuading boys to work. Boys in preparatory schools, 
therefore, have constantly put before them an end of study which is out- 
side the study itself. When they come to college, they look upon their 
college work in the same way: in school, they study to get into college; 
in college, they study to get a degree; in both, they economize energy by 
doing as little as will accomplish the purpose. Contact with many hun- 
dreds of these youths, both before and after they enter college, has con- 
vinced me that the lack of interest in intellectual pursuits of which we 
complain in our students is due to the fact that the majority of them 
spend the most impressionable years of their lives in an atmosphere in 
which study is regarded not as an end desirable in itself, but as a means 
to the practical end of getting into college. In saying this, I do not mean 
to blame the preparatory schools; for they are the results of a system for 
which I believe the present college requirements for admission are re- 
sponsible. 

"I should like to illustrate the points which I have tried to make by 
actual cases which will show how our methods virtually exclude excep- 
tionally fine students, and how diflBcult it is for the Committee on Admis- 
sion to administer a scheme which is essentially quantitative in such a 
way as to select for the college men of good quality. When admission 
requirements are discussed in the faculty, the debate usually turns on a 
particular subject or the way of teaching it; but the work of the Com- 
mittee on Admission is the practical work of selecting students. Very 
little of that work is necessary to convince one that you cannot select 
good students by prescribing what and how they shall study. To illus- 
trate this, I will give first the programme of a boy who attended a school 
whose curriculum has always been determined by our requirements for 
admission. The numbers at the right of the subjects indicate the school 
periods per week given to the study. 

First Year. Second Year. Third Year. Fourth Year. 

English 3 English 3 English 3 English 3 

History 2 History 2 History 2 Latin 4 

French 3 French 3 French 3 Greek 5 

Latin 6 Latin 4 Latin 4 Mathematics 4 

Botany 1 Greek 5 Greek 5 Physics 4 

Mathematics 4 Mathematics 3 Mathematics 3 

19 20 20 20 






ADMISSIOX REQUIREMENTS 



"This boy entered Harvard easily without conditions, dividing his 
examinations between two years. His record was mostly made up of 
unsatisfactory grades — he had no grade higher than C, and only three C's 
out of ten grades. His record thus far in college indicates that he is not 
a desirable student. . . . 

'•'I wish to give one more illustration which I think is even better of 
the way our theories work for the exclusion of brilliant students. The 
case I select is that of a student in a high school in Detroit. 



First Year 

Algebra 5 

Latin 5 

Anc. History 4 

English 4 



Second Year. 

Algebra 5 

Latin 5 

Phys. Geogr 4 

Mech. Drawing 4 



Third Year. 

Geometry 5 

French 5 

Chemistry 5 

English 4 



Fourth Year. 

Geometry 3 

I GoU. Algebra 4 

i Trig 4 

Physics 5 

i Adv. Chem 10 

h Solid Geom.... 3 
5 German 5 



'•'Of this student, the headmaster of his school writes as follows (the 
italics are mine) : 



I am enclosing at your request an outline of the work by the most brilliant pupU in 
our graduating class this year. You will observe that his course would not permit him 

to enter Harvard College. When Mr was here a year ago he asked me to 

notify the University of any young man here who gave promise in any particular 
subject, as the University would be glad to offer such a student inducement to go to 
Harvard. This young man is the brightest mathematician I have known during my 
twenty-five years in high schools. As an illustration of his abUity, during the past 
year he has read by himself, as recreation, most of the Differential and Integral 
Calculus; and he has also done reading in Analytical Geometry. He has done what 
would be regarded as advanced work in college chemistry. 

"It is hard to say what this student could have done if he had wished 
to come to Harvard. By our examinations he could hardly have made a 
record of more than sixteen points, not because he had not done more 
work, but because our system would give him barely a chance to show 
what he has done in languages, and no chance at all to show wherein he 
is strongest. If by some lucky chance the Committee on Admission got 
an opportunity to pilot him through the shoals and bars of our admission 
requirements they would be obliged to admit him under conditions which 
would stamp him as inferior to dull boys like the one I mentioned first, 
and of whom there is a large number, and to make him work at a rate 
of more than twenty courses for his degree. 



ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS . 373 

"These cases are only two* of a large number which correspondence about 
admission continually reveals, and are examples of thousands we never 
hear of. From men like these, our present regulations for admission cut 
us off, and operate in favor of dull and indifferent students like the man 
whose school programme I gave first. 

''In view of these fact?, it seems to me that one who is constantly 
occupied with the actual business of admitting students, or of explaining 
how they can or cannot be admitted to the privileges of the college, may 
be permitted a certain impatience and exasperation at the waste of good 
material he is compelled to witness. It would be perfectly possible in a 
few years to have as many students of the type I last mentioned as we 
now have indifferent students if the Committee on Admission were em- 
powered to admit men hy merit alone. Any committee of the faculty that 
was free to act after collecting facts about an applicant's school record 
and examining him in those subjects in which he is best able to show his 
quality could choose for the faculty a body of students that would relieve 
teaching of all its drudgery, and make it a perpetual delight. The scholar- 
ship of Harvard College depends more on the men we choose than on 
anything we can do after we get them. The present method of choice, 
intricate and complex, w^orking in obscure ways, cuts us off from thou- 
sands of good students, and depresses the quality of those we get." 

I ask the candid reader to answer this question: Why is it 
that such convincing statements are not heeded by the faculties 
to which they are submitted? And I submit to all readers who 
are anywise responsible for the government of universities the 
suggestion that it would be well to accept the general diagnosis 
offered in this book, unless some other equally consistent deter- 
mination of causes and remedies is offered and adopted. 



"The other case was of a pupil who stood at the head of a class of 180 
in a Minnesota high school^ who could not be admitted to Harvard without 
conditions that would have exacted 21 courses for graduation, as com- 
pared with the I7i courses required of the dull man first described. The 
excellent student probably went to Cornell. 



374 BELATION TO SECONDARY SCHOOLS 



TJie Proper Relation of the American University to 
the American High School. 

In an}^ useful consideration of a practical question, the essential 
principles that must underlie any wise conclusion are distinctly 
separated from those subordinate details which are either of tran- 
sitory import or of dubious effect. Some of the most injurious 
mistakes made by mankind proceed from the failure to attain 
such clarity of reasoning in the popular consideration of plans 
for societal action. This fact is not merely the consequence of 
the complexity of every concrete problem of social welfare^ but it 
is also the result of an interference by the passions which are 
always involved and generally illogically involved in every matter 
requiring sustained co-operation. Whatever the proper relation 
of the American university to the high school may be, it is certain 
that the men who are clamoring about antagonistic purposes or 
interests are darkening counsel. It is true that some damage, 
along with mutual service, has come from each side to the other, 
but there is no conflict of genuine interests. 

No fixed statement of the proper relation is possible or needed, 
but some permanent features of a proper relation ma}^ be inferred 
from proved errors of activity and of attitude. The most con- 
spicuous mistake that has been made by the higher institutions 
is but another manifestation of that rashness which makes men 
ready to enforce by law-making power every notion of virtue or 
expediency that may take possession of undisciplined minds. Such 
men have of late years exercised an abnormal influence in the per- 
functory acts of university faculties. Thus, partly from inad- 
vertence and partly from attempt to get by force of law results 
unattainable by such means, our universities have imposed injurious 
regulations upon our secondary schools. It is important to under- 
stand that we have herein not something done at the expense of 
the high schools for the good of the universities, as many are 



EASE OE CORRECTION 375 

exclaiming; but that, on the contrary, all true interests of the 
universities suffer even more from these mistakes than do the high 
schools. While the high schools may well lift aloud the voice of 
protest against some injurious compulsions and restrictions im- 
posed upon them, they are in a position to make the retort: 
"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- 
selves and for your children." 

The abuses referred to are characterized by the absence of evil 
intention, by their accidental nature, and by the ease with which 
they could be corrected. It is only necessarj' for the universities 
to recognize that they ought not to dictate beyond minimum 
requirements for profitable attendance in the first courses of 
study offered by them. They may and ought to give advice far 
beyond their peremptory requirements, JDut it is neither possible 
nor desirable for them to inspect authoritatively everything that 
an affiliated high school undertakes to do. Wjithin the sphere of 
legitimate demands for admission it would be wtII to establish 
more thoroughly the authority of the university, but the attempt 
to spread authority over everything and for all purposes weakens 
it where it is legitimate and would be beneficial. 

The universities should thank their stars that the burden and 
responsibility of legislating for the general good of the high 
schools, as distinguished from their own legitimate requirements, 
does not rest upon them. On the other hand, I would have the 
universities become far more sensible of their true responsibility 
for wise counsel in this and in many other spheres. 

A good basis for the development of the proper relation between 
colleges and secondary schools would be provided by two easy 
reforms, towit: the repeal of supererogatory regulations, and recog- 
nition of the fact that advice is better not given unless it be wise 
advice. 

If these remarks were left without concrete illustration, it is 
probable that their bearings might not be understood by some. 
For that reason I cite two examples: 



376 TWO SPECIMENS 

One of the largest imiversities in the United States (not a 
state university) has undertaken the direct government — except 
for "independent business management/'^ which is solemnly per- 
mitted — of "all academies and other secondary schools" that aspire 
to be "affiliated/' Onlv those schools are admitted to that high 
adoption which place themselves "under the advisor}^ management 
of the university in respect to faculties, curricula, and educational 
methods."' The usual relation of "inspecting'' everything and 
"recognizing" or not recognizing, is also maintained with other 
schools, which is designated by the term "co-operation"; but this 
term, all are advised, is to be "carefully distinguished from ^affil- 
iation'." To such an extreme has one enormous university been 
precipitated. 

Another institution (a state university) promulgated in 1910 
the requirement that for full credit in the subject of English, "at 
least one-fourth of all the pupil's school work in each year of a 
four years' high school course must be done in English." Som.e 
other college may have made the same law, but as far as I know 
this particular fatuity is unique. It was, indeed, quietly revoked 
after protest from high school men, nevertheless it aptly illustrates 
the sort of thing that the mistaken attitude I am indicating is 
likely to cause a university to stumble into. It would be well to 
offer different degrees of approbation or credit; but excellence of 
results is the only rational ground for the highest credit. To 
make the devotion of some absolute amount of time a requisite, 
might not be absurd ; but to demand an absolute ratio to the time 
devoted to all other activities, is not only preposterous in the 
abstract but would interfere with many desirable possibilities. 
For instance, a pupil who in even one of his four years had taken 
five studies would, under this rule, forfeit a degree of credit in 
English to which, by hypothesis, he would be entitled by the 
amount and quality of his knowledge of English, if he had not 
taken that fifth study. 

Five years ago I would not have believed that such a rule could 



377 

be enacted by a respectable faciilt}^ except through inattention to 
a thoughtless proposal by some individual who had been intrusted 
with matters too wonderful for him. But I learned through 
experience that clear statements of objections were not only uncon- 
vincing, but apparently unintelligible to some presumed experts. 
I ma}^, therefore, without apology, point out several more self- 
evident facts : ( 1 ) It is impossible to estimate the amount of 
time a pupil devotes to any one study by the number of "recita- 
tions.^^ (2) English is learned best in a school where the precepts 
of the English class-room are practically enforced in every other 
room, and through proper study of some other language. (3) If 
the university's influence were strong enough to excite ambition 
to win its maximum approval in this subject, some almost indis- 
pensable studies would be crowded out of reach. This would 
necessarily follow in the particular case referred to, because of a 
simultaneous regulation compelling every subject tO' he taught 
every day. That is to say, five recitations a week throughout the 
year must be devoted to a subject, or credit for a year's study is 
refused. The whole obliquity of the rule for full credit in English 
is not apparent until this other presumptuous rule requiring five 
periods a week in every subject is taken into account. 

The colleges of this country might be classified as to their rela- 
tions with secondary schools, into those that define a "unit'' of 
credit for admission as (1) not less than three recitations a week 
for a year; (2) not less than four a Aveek; (3) those who do not 
allow any elbow room at all, but require recitations every day in 
every subject, on pain of exacting two 3^ears' work for one year's 
credit. This order 1, 2, and 3 corresponds to a decreasing com- 
prehension of the subject-matter of the legislation. I do not mean 
to suggest the preferability of the minimum for all subjects; but 
latitude is needed for the very reason that different allotments 
ought to be made for different subjects, or for the same subject 
under different conditions. 



378 PROPER ALTERXATIYES 

There are two ways whereby proper relations of our high schools 
to our universities might he established so as to safeguard legiti- 
mate requirements for entrance, and so as to set and keep the high 
schools free to discharge their manifold functions. 

One way is for the universities to admit through their own 
examinations, offerino^ the same examination at everv high school 
requesting it, and at their own doors — as many universities as 
possible adopting the same examination.* This is the simplest 
way of avoiding the existing evils. It should be followed unless 
the preferable but more difficult way be cleared of present obstruc- 
tions. 

The other way is for the universities to recede from their vain 
attempt to control, by requirements for "recognition," everything 
that the high schools do. Xo such task is imposed upon them 
either by duty or necessity. On the contrar\^, the attempt dis- 
sipates their legitimate and much needed influence, and demoral- 
izes the secondary schools. 

The universities may jnstl}^ and prudently require for admission 
to their courses of instruction (1) a fair quota of the proper 
results of what is called "formal education"; (2) sufficient dis- 
cipline of mind to proceed firmly and swiftly in new advances 
contemplated in the college curriculum, and (3) in several sub- 
jects a definite minimum of accurate knowledge which is pre- 
supposed by the corresponding college courses. This they could 



*Tlie advantage of such a system competently administered may be 
considered by reading a discussion of the question by President Edward 
McQueen Gray of the University of New Mexico, issued as a bulletin of 
that university, entitled "How the Curriculum of the Secondary Schools 
Might be Reconstructed." Aside from its direct bearings, I recommend 
that paper to every teacher for its exposition of the nature of a good 
examination. Of one thing we may be sure: the disrepute into which 
all examinations have fallen among the American people is the result of 
the fact that most of the examinations within their experience have not 
had the characteristics of a good examination. As with everything else, 
the worth of an examination depends upon its quality. 



AFflLIATION 379 

-successfully exact, and it is far more than they now get. By 
attending to too many things, they are missing the things most 
essential to their own primary responsibility — upon which even 
the higher developments of their great enterprises rest. 

The system of inspection and affiliation, with all its alluring 
and noble possibilities, will survive only through genuine useful- 
ness. And it can become genuinely useful only if the universities 
maintain a temperate and high-minded self-restraint. 

The university should offer counsel upon any subject whenever 
it has ripened counsel to offer; but in the matter of requiremmts 
for admission it ought to restrain itself to a demand for good 
quality in the results of a few studies. And that demand must 
leave perfectly free a considerable margin of time for such appli- 
cation as the individual high school may deem best. For the 
marginal part of the pupil's time, the university need feel no 
responsibile concern. There ought to be no running to the uni- 
versity for "recognition" of this or that vocational instruction, 
manual training, or exercises in physical culture. Let the high 
school do all this, let the university give all good advice about it 
than it can command; but separate such matters from university 
regulation. 

If the university were attending directly to its own affair of 
entrance requirements, it would choose a rational range of sub- 
jects in which examination for admission would be acceptable. 
The sole purpose would be to insure ability to profit from instruc- 
tion offered in the university. Nothing else needs to be or ought 
to be considered. The same subjects would be enough to legislate 
about in co-operation with affiliated schools, in order to admit 
their graduates without examination. It ought to have been 
known in advance, but experience has demonstrated that to attempt 
more is to secure less. 

I shall say little about the shortcomings or duties of the high 
schools because little that bears upon the present subject needs 



380 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 

to be said.* That the results of our educational activities at 
every stage are a mixture of good and evil, is to say no more than 
that those activities are social undertakings. The achievement 
of an individual** mind and character may in rare instances 
approximate perfection; but no social undertaking has ever at- 
tained any such result. That secondary schools may just now 
be guilty of extraordinary shortcomings is merely the consequence 
of the extraordinary difficulties and disturbances that have beset 
them during recent years. Such is the point of view of every 
sympathetic critic, and every critic ought to be sympathetic. On 
the other hand, high school teachers and administrators might well 
take for the text of a profitable self-examination Coventry Pat- 
more's loving reproach to womankind: 

"Ah! wasteful woman! . . . 

How has she cheapened paradise; 

How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, 

Which spent with due respective thrift 

Had made brutes men and men divine." 

It may be assumed, then, that there is room for infinite improve- 
ment in both ideas and execution; but much improvement would 
follow the establishment of a proper relation with the universities. 
All questions could then be considered upon their luerits. There 
would be no more bungling attempts to stretch out this and lop 
off that in order to make the same '^unit" of each. The very men 
who have proved themselves such poor legislators would often be 



*The high schools have, in their turn, injuriously coerced the elemen- 
tary schools, thus — after a. fashion as ancient as it is craven — passing 
on to subordinates unjust treatment suffered from superiors. See ISlote 
on Elementary Schools, at end of this chapter. 

■"*It may be well to explain that I refer to individuals who have been 
guided and helped and supported by the wisdom of the ages; and that, 
in my opinion, the modern reforming individualism which sets up the 
dicta of isolated specialists ignorant and defiant of the consensus sapien- 
tium, never has reached and never can achieve just conclusions in any 
matter of fundamental or broad import. 



THE NEED FOR LATITUDE 381 

good advisers. Certain it is that much of the teaching under 
prevalent arrangements is as loose and long drawn out as if the 
main purpose were to consumie time. 

Subjects of study and allotments of time, best for one school, 
do not suit another. Vital organisms and quasi organisms such 
as social institutions have but one known way of improvement — 
by spontaneous variations and the selection of the fittest. Uni- 
formity means deterioration, and it is possible only under arbi- 
trary control. 

The situation of the secondary schools at the present time is 
such that it seems to me of peculiar, I may say vital importance 
that they be set free to adjust themselves to a changing order. 
If the bonds are not speedily loosed, they will be burst with 
reactionary violence. 

In the relation of seekers and givers of counsel, the high schools 
and universities could find safe courses of action; but there is an 
especial importance in the present circumstances that every law 
or requirement should be framed to allow the greatest latitude 
consistent wdth efficiency. Let any man argue for his opinion 
that it is a mistake to study more than four subjects in one year, 
but let him not dare to enforce that opinion by an arbitrary 
requirement. Perhaps it may be discovered that there is no way 
to meet modern needs without sacrificing paramount interests of 
the individual and society, except by carrying five "unit'' subjects 
in some year, or by giving even only one class-room hour a week 
to some supplemental subject. Whatever experience wdth free 
variations may prove to be best, we may be sure that it is a mis- 
take to give the same time to every subject. A clear mind would 
deem it very extraordinary if it should not prove to be better to 
give five periods a week to some subjects, four to another, three 
to another, and so on. It is almost unthinkable to a disciplined 
mind that the same time for all could be best. It is at least an 
obvious fact that in some schools classes do more and better work 
in three periods a w^eek than is done in others in five; or more 



382 CORKOBOBATIYE OPIXIOXS 

and better in one 3'ear than results elsewhere in two years. Let 
us get away from the idea that school work can be measured 
by the clock. 

But the important thing is for the universities to get it out of 
their heads that it is incumbent upon them to legislate on such 
questions. Let them inspect and test results to their satisfaction, 
and more keenly than they do; but let them forego the dictation 
of programs. 

The fundamental principles to which I have appealed in these 
remarks stand on so wide a basis of human history and are so 
open to the experience or observation of all men, that it is almost 
superfluous to cite concurrent judgments. But it may help some 
who do not think independently, to mention that the Eeport of 
the Committee of Xine on the Articulation of High School and 
College, presented in July, 1911, to the Xational Education Asso- 
ciation, has, as the gist of it, protests and recommendations such 
as I have suggested. The report does not deal much with the 
underlying principles, but its specific complaints and its most 
important demands are corollaries of what I have set forth. A few 
quotations will sufficiently show this : 

"As an illustration of the confusion in the requirements of different 
colleges, one requires one foreign language, counts work in a second, 
gives no credit for a third; another requires two foreign languages and 
one unit in a third, unless music or physics is presented as a substitute; 
and a third absolutely requires three foreign languages." 

"By following the usual college prescription, the best preparation for- 
college is not secured."' 

"A course that is good in one high school may not be suited to another. 
Uniformity in this subject is utterly disastrous." 

"Quantity should be subordinated to quality." 

Speaking of the minimum that high schools should themselves exact of 
a graduate, the committee is of the opinion that "the quantitative require- 
ment should be fifteen units." But the committee demands that the uni- 
versity must not require or supervise more than "eleven units" out of 
the high school's fiftfen for any one course of study. Also, the com- 



CORROBORATIVE OPINIONS 383 

mittee's "unit" represents the requirement of not less than four periods 
a week. 

"That the subjects from which the margin (i. e., beyond the eleven 
units subject to university requirements) may be made up should be 
left entirely unspecified, appears to be vital to the progressive develop- 
ment of secondary education." 

"As long as formal recognition must be sought for each new subject, 
so long will the high school be subservient and not fully progressive. It 
ought to be possible for any high school at any time to introduce a sub- 
ject that either meets the peculiar needs of the community or that appears 
to be the most appropriate vehicle for teachers of pronounced individ- 
uality." 

The gist of these demands of the ]J^'ational Education Asso- 
ciation is that the high schools should themselves require a mini- 
mum of fifteen units for graduation, and that the universities 
should exact results of good quality in eleven units of each grad- 
uate's course of study, leaving all work in excess of eleven units 
entirely free for such application as the high school may deem 
best to require or permit. The "unit"' chosen consisted of not 
less than four periods a week. It would be far better to allow at 
least some portion of the required units to consist of three periods 
a week. 

Such a program, in all its bearings upon a proper relation to 
universities, is harmonious with my counsel. The universities 
would be free to exact good preparation in a few subjects and to 
leave the high schools free to use upwards of one-fourth of their 
time on instruction useful for its proper purposes but not signifi- 
cant as preparation for genuine university work. Such subjects 
the universities ought not to attempt ta control, either as to what 
they may be or as to how many hours may be devoted to them. 
In regard to the self-imposed requirements of high schools, there 
may be the difference that I advise against wdiole "units" for some 
things offered by the high schools. Especially the margin beyond 
the university's requirements should be free for determination by 
each high school. Such, indeed, may have been the intention of 
the committee; but their plan might be understood to mean that 



384 CONSEQUENCES OE PROPER RELATIONS 

the free margin of four or more units should be filled by full 
units or certain recognized fractions. 

I know it will be no easy undertaking to induce a faculty, 
especially of any state university, to revoke its present arbitrary 
laws for ruling secondary schools and fixing entrance require- 
ments — or to abolish some similar enactments among the regu- 
lations for administering its own curricula. One entering upon 
the undertaking might well plead with the petty dictators in the 
words of Cromwell to the Scotch divines : "I beseech you in the 
bowels of Christ, think it possible that ye may be mistaken.'^ The 
main resistance might be found in the multifarious departments 
of pedagogy, the very quarter whence the strongest support ought 
to be forthcoming; for the narrowness of specialization in recent 
times, together with other causes, has developed even professors 
of education who are as uneducated as they are precipitate to 
impose their fragmentary ideas by force of law. The one-sided 
specialists in all departments are prone to agree with the demands 
of any set of proclaimed experts, and even if all such men and 
women taken together do not make a majority, the prevailing 
organization of our universities has so discouraged the better edu- 
cated and wiser members that it will not be easy to secure due 
attention to the matter. 

A few concluding words will indicate my conception of the 
potential consequences of establishing a proper relation between 
universities and high schools. 

Let us accept our American plan of advancing to a higher 
institution after the stage fixed by graduation from standard high 
schools, and of uniting in one student body the undergraduate and 
post-graduate students of our typical university, as probably more 
suitable to our needs and spirit than the German plan. 

If our universities will give up all attempt to rule the secondary 
schools beyoLd intrinsically necessary requirements for admission, 
and will faithfully accept the high calling of guide, counsellor, and 
friend, the affiliated secondary schools would respond loyally, and 



VISITORS OF SCHOOLS 38'5 

the unaffiliated would sincerely seek to qualify themselves to 
enjo}' such helpful relations. And wise decisions concerning prin- 
ciples and expediencies would generally be reached, if the uni- 
versities will recognize the prime necessity of choosing thoroughly 
competent visitors of schools.* 

Advice, as I have said, is better not given unless it be wise 
advice. To take upon oneself the office of a counsellor is no light 
responsibility. In some States universities have appointed to be 
the mouthpiece of their advice a visitor apparently chosen for his 
popularity with school men of the political sort, or because he 
was a ^'good mixer." That is done, if the truth should be spoken, 
simply because the authorities have not been sensible of the respon- 
sibility to give good counsel when advice is voluniiarily offered, 
and they have wanted a "drummer" for the university. The itch 
for numbers is a disease that noble educational institutions need 
today to be especially upon their guard against. 

It is worse than an impertinence to offer an incompetent adviser. 
I believe a university ought to seek more conscientiously for excel- 
lent qualifications in its visitor of schools than in any other of its 
agents and representatives. Experience, sound scholarship, ripened 
judgment, and a detached open-minded attitude toward all intel- 
lectual questions, are the essential qualifications. The "good 
mixer" is seldom a good adviser, simply because he is so fre- 
quently a flatterer; and a flatterer is an enemy — according to 



*President Craighead, in the able discussion quoted on page 78, pointed 
out the same need on the part of the American Medical Association in 
recognizing medical schools: "It is easy to have high entrance require- 
ments and comprehensive courses of study on paper. Many a backwoods 
college without endowment, without libraries and laboratories, without 
even learned teachers, has sent out in catalogues courses of study as 
comprehensive as were ever offered at Harvard or at the University of 
Virginia. This council will never know what the colleges of this country 
are doing either to enforce standards or to exact adequate entrance prep- 
aration until it is able to send out competent and impartial experts to 
make a thorough examination of the schools." 



386 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

Tacitus, an enemy of the worst kind — pessimum genus inimicorum 
laudantes. 

In regard to state educational systemjs, all parts, from the ele- 
mentary schools to the State University, ought to co-operate as 
organs of a vital system. The worst affliction that could befall the 
entire system is paralysis or derangement at the top. The men 
who claim to champion the '^'common schools'^ in their opposition 
to higher education, if sincere, do not understand the matters they 
talk about. The truth is, that no part of any system of education 
can be healthfully independent of other parts. FYom the lowest 
"grade" to the arena of adult life, the exit from one stage should 
be an entrance to the next. No matter where an individual may 
leave the system's tutelage, at every terminus there is need for 
an index pointing upward. It is no argument against the mainte- 
nance of high schools or of universities, that comparatively small 
numbers reach those stages. Besides the necessity of an incentive 
to something beyond, nothing could be more blind than to suppose 
that only those who attend a school are benefited by that school. 
All higher education, or anything that leads thereto, is of incal- 
culable worth to society at large in countless ways which will 
suggest themselves to anyone who will take the trouble to think 
on the subject. Water runs down hill; yet the earth were 
sterile if water did not ascend to the sky. But men are 
prone to praise only the descending rain and the powerful 
down-flowing streams. And in the flow of life, the majority seem 
able to see only the results as life spends itself in downward- 
streaming activities of work and enjoyment, and are blind to the 
need of ascending thought and emotion. Yet from that ascent 
comes the force and meaning and worth of life. 

NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

The standard public school course of study in these United States is 
still commonly supposed to require eight years ("grades") of elementary 
school and four years of high school. Some schools, all over the country, 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 387 

finding it difficult to occupy pupils for eight years with the elementary 
course, have reduced the number of grades to seven; hut generally this 
half-way correction seems to be made with trepidation or apologies. (The 
school system of Kansas City, Mo., is, I believe, the only large public 
school system in the United States that never yielded to the eight-years 
fashion.) As a technical problem the question is of unsurpassed impor- 
tance to teachers and administrators of schools; but it is also of such 
vital importance to every parent and every child, that any competent 
discussion or experience bearing upon it should be considered with lively 
interest by men of all vocations. It is important that all educational 
institutions, high and low, should understand a matter which is so funda- 
mental. 

The plan of spreading the combined elementary school and high school 
courses over twelve years never developed from experienced needs, but it 
was foisted upon American schools in an attempt to imitate a misunder- 
stood pattern. It eould be proved historically that the twelve years plan 
(which required eight years to precede a four-years high school), so pre- 
cipitately adopted and so injuriously practiced in the United States, was 
based upon the three years of the German vorshule and the nine years 
of the German gymnasium. Three plus nine does make twelve; but eager 
designers of educational fashions failed to observe that the German 
gymnasium, does not correspond to the American high school, but takes 
the student to the point of the Standard B. A. degree of American col- 
leges, or well into the stage of the senior class of the best American 
college. Also, the three years of the vorshule and first three years of 
gymnasium conduct the pupils somewhat beyond the eighth grade in 
American systems. The progress of a pupil is not rapid when prepared 
in six years to enter the first-year class of a standard high school. 

Be it understood;, tlierefore, that a ten years course to college entrance 
makes concession to the fact that the States of this nation undertake to 
discharge their function of public education through teachers the rank 
and file of whom are sunk economically below the better sort of manual 
laborers. If the economic basis were raised to command an equivalent 
of the undergraduate college course to qualify a teacher in elementary 
schools and an equivalent of several years of post-graduate work for high 
school positions, and to supply a suitable number of such teachers, we 
could do in America as well as is done in Germany, — which would mean 
nine years to pass the stage of the best American high schools. 

Let no one suppose that I, or any well informed opponent of the twelve- 



388 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

years course, condemn it merely from a desire to increase the number of 
those who could seek higher education. That will take care of itself. 
The immediate effect upon the children during the time covered is the 
main point of interest and responsibility, and it is the main point of my 
argument. Our counsel is that all that is attempted in the eight years 
of elementary school courses — whether well or poorly accomplished in a 
particular system, — would be better accomplished by the same teachers. 
in six years; and that four years is ample for the standard American 
high school. We accept the line of demarkation fixed by standard college 
entrance. Of course, if the American university were to cut out all 
except Avhat we call post-graduate work, either separate colleges would 
have to fill the gap, or high schools and colleges be united in one new 
institution covering seven or eight years. For my part, I deem the 
American plan of advancing to a higher institution after our high school 
stage better adapted to our needs and spirit than any alternative; and 
I believe preponderance of advantage is in the union of undergraduate 
and post-graduate students in one student body. 

Isolated corrections of the eight-grades mistake have been made during 
the last twenty years in perhaps every State in the Union, and acceler- 
ated results may be hoped for in the future; but the slowness with which 
protests against consuming eight years in the studies of the elementary 
school gained a hearing, was discouraging. For nearly ten years follow- 
ing 1890 I saw noi progress beyond the narrow reach of my own influence. 
One notable advantage was, indeed, gained between 1894 and 1899 as far 
as Texas was concerned; for during that period the University of Texas 
ceased to advise a twelve-years course, — thus having the distinction, I 
believe, of being the first institution of its class to drop that off-hand 
prescription. Called from a school superintendency (where in 1892 I had 
put in six grades all and more than all of an elementary school course 
whose attenuated form had been stretched over eight years) to the faculty 
of the University of Texas in 1894, I continued there observations bearing 
upon the question, especially because that year, at the meeting of the 
State Teachers' Association, two representatives of the University had 
presented papers entitled "A Plea for a Uniform Twelve- Years Course." 
For five years 1 inquired of every student who entered the university 
how many years he had previously attended school. Only one was found 
who had been in school twelve years, and it was discovered afterwards 
that she had included two years spent in a kindergarten. Only a few had 
been in school as much as ten years. The length of previous schooling 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 389 

was probably less at that time for the University of Texas than for 
eastern universities; but I am sure very few students have ever entered 
American colleges after twelve years of preparatory schooling. Note that 
this is in spite of the fact that standard public schools all over the 
country have all the while maintained twelve-years courses. Such facts 
and the intrinsic merits of the question were submitted to members of 
the faculty, and I have not since heard any representative of the Uni- 
versity of Texas pleading for twelve years of preparation. 

In 1899 it was my privilege to organize an especially interesting system 
of schools, and again to prove by experience that all that is attempted in 
twelve-years courses is easily accomplished in ten years. And the next 
year I was rejoiced to hear a powerful voice, one of those whose "line is 
gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world," 
raised in challenge of the inordinate length of time allotted to the course 
of study in American public schools; for in May, 1900, Hugh Muenster- 
berg, head of the philosophical department of Harvard University, pub- 
lished an incisive discussion of the question. He showed beyond candid 
dispute, that "in Germany the level of American high school graduation 
is attained at fifteen.'" Alas, why is it that so many ears have been 
deaf toi his eloquent conclusion: "Those years which every American boy 
loses represent a loss for practical achievement in later life, which, cannot 
be compensated for by an early beginning of professional training. It is 
a loss to the man and an incomparable loss to the nation." 

For the last ten years, besides some school superintendents, some of 
the most competent university presidents have understood this question 
and several of them have been urgently advising the needed correction. 
Of these none has been clearer or more forcible than Presidnt A. R,. Hill. 
At the meeting of the National Association of State Universities in 1911, 
he, as a member of the committee on reorganization of education, brought 
up the subject of "such a reorganization of the curricula of our elemen- 
tary and secondary schools and such a readjustment of our college entrance 
requirements as will enable students to enter college, and thus eventually 
to receive their baccalaureate degrees, at an earlier age than is now pos- 
sible." President Hill said, in part: 

"I have not been authorized to speak for the committee, but have had 
some correspondence with the chairman [President W. L. Bryan] and with 
President Baker. . . . The opinion of the committee as a whole I am 
not in a position to state. President Baker's paper, presented at the 



390 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

National Education Association meeting last summer, has been read by- 
members of the committee, and, perhaps, by other members of this asso- 
ciation; and I wish to say, as one member of the committee, that I think 
the topic one worthy of consideration by the association, and that, on 
the whole, I agree with President Baker. I want particularly to say just 
a word on one point. ... I think that President Baker is correct in 
believing that the college age should be from sixteen to twenty, instead 
of from eighteen to twenty-two, and that something ought to be done in 
the development of our educational system that will make it possible to 
obtain a B. A. degree earlier, so that the student's general culture may be 
completed without delaying tooi long the period of professional preparation 
for his life work. 

"The point that he has emphasized is the waste of time in the elemen- 
tary school. I am thoroughly convinced that about two years are wasted, 
and that we could accomplish as much in six years as we now do in eight. 
Students could thus enter the university at sixteen; or, with the exten- 
sion of the period of secondary education by two years thus made possible, 
they might enter at the present age and the state university could build 
upon a substantial basis of general culture. 

"Take the situation in New York state as an illustration. I will take 
an extreme case. In one city, they covered in six years what we would 
ordinarily suppose to be the work of the elementary school grades. Dur- 
ing the seventh and eighth years the pupils were introduced to new text- 
books covering the same ground they had already covered. . , . There 
was virtually nothing new in the last twO' years of the elementary cur- 
riculum. ... In the elementary school conducted by our school of 
education, we have been carrying on in seven grades all the work that 
is usually done in eight. I am convinced that, as soon as we can get 
that school thoroughly organized, the same work can be done in six years. 
As it is, in the seven years the pupils are abundantly fitted for high 
school work. 

"Now, if that can be done, why retain the seventh and eighth grades? 
If two years can be saved in the elementary schools, students could enter 
the university two years earlier than now, or, if secondary education be 
extended accordingly, we could receive students intoi the universities at 
eighteen years of age, two years further advanced in their work than 
they lare now at the time of matriculation." 

It has been a strange (although foreseeable, and predicted by me ten 
years before it came to pass) misunderstanding which has led some men 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 391 

to declare that the college course of four years must be diminished by- 
half. President Butler is the most eminent doctor who has offered this 
strange prescription. For how would diminution of college courses help 
the boys who rightly spurn the emptiness of the elementary schools and 
never reach even the high schools? Also, if two years be saved at the 
stage where they are worse than wasted, what need for lopping off at the 
top? Men in real conning towers for the steering of the vessels given 
into their hands would see such things in their true bearings. President 
Butler argues that men should not spend twelve years to pass the high 
school, four more in college, and three or four more in study of a spe- 
cialty; that such a course requires a man to be twenty-six to twenty-eight 
years old before remunerative work is begun; and that modern demands 
on life will necessitate a change. All these arguments are valid and the 
intended conclusion would be just, if the assumed premise were true; but 
the premise denies the two main facts : ( 1 ) Twelve years is not needed 
for and cannot be profitably spent on our elementary and high school 
courses, and (2) of all persons who have entered American colleges very 
few, comparatively, have spent twelve years preparing to do so. 

Desirable statistics on this subject have never been compiled. The 
average age of freshmen proves part of the truth, but does not show 
enough because a large number of young men and women go toi college 
after some years of working to save money or other interruption of 
continuous schooling. If the associations of universities or the Carnegie 
Foundation or the General Education Board would gather statistics on 
the following points and certify the facts to administrators of public 
schools, valuable service would be rendered: 

( 1 ) In colleges, find average number of years spent in school ( exclu- 
sive of kindergarten) previous to college entrance; and also, the per- 
centage of students coming from public high schools. (As no private 
schools have preparatory courses of twelve years, it would be significant 
to find their share in the body of youth who seek education beyond the 
high school stage.) 

(2) In public high schools, find the average number of years in school 
previous to entering the fourth-year class of the high school. 

I commend the last investigation to every school superintendent in the 
case of his own high school. It would illuminate his view to find out how 
few survive his system, and to note that it is chiefly those who somehow 
skip his "grades" that get through at all. 

I beg all readers to reflect, also, upon the consequences of retaining 



392 XOTE ox ELEMEXTAEY SCHOOLS 

pupils for more tlian one year in the same grade of a twelve-year course. 
Legitimate reasons often require such delays, but foolish practices con- 
cerning "promotions" make such an accident at some stage of the course 
rather the rule than the exception. Think of what it means to stretch 
out your eight years of elementary school to nine or ten years. Boys 
are doomed when tha.t befalls them. Beards begin to grow before they 
escape from a tutelage weak and meager for little girls, often four years 
younger, who have skipped a grade or two. The boys are right in leaving 
such schools. 

Let us consider for a moment the inner workings of a twelve-years 
course. Subsequent effects, as I have said, may be left to take care of 
themselves. If we do what is best for the children for the time being, 
that will include a proper preparation for future opportunities. 

The last two or three years of the usual eight years of elementary 
school present the most troublesome problems to both the teachers and 
the administrators of American public schools. It is mainly in the 
seventh and eighth grades, and not in the high school (as is frequently 
alleged by those who have not investigated the facts), that our boys take 
a disgust for studies and an undue proportion of them leave school. The 
almost insensible progress is stultifying as well as discouraging. It is . 
more tiresome to mark time than to step out along the pathway. It is 
hard, also, to make an empty bag stand upright. Xo statistics can make 
the truth clearer than it has always been, but certain investigations of 
the Society of Educational Research should help reform by placing facts 
beyond the sphere of individual insight. For instance, some of the inves- 
tigations referred to have proved that children who have completed a 
course in arithmetic in three or four years stand identically the same 
examinations better than children who have been kept "studying" the 
same matter for six or seven years. It is hard to understand how 
experienced teachers can fail to see the truth for themselves; but it is 
a fact, howsoever long it may be before all eyes are opened to it, that 
pupils cannot spend on ordinary text-books the time usually spent upon 
them, without impairing their powers in every direction besides failing 
to learn the particular subject-matter. If the same matter were studied. 
at suitable stages with reasonable dispatch, it would be mastered as far 
as possible for their stage of mental development. 

Little condensation would be required for the first four gi'ades. All 
that is needed — ^speaking approximately — is to assign the work put down 
for fifth and sixth years to the fifth year, and that set down for the 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 393 

seventh and eighth, to the sixth. It is the easiest, as well as the most 
needed, school reform. 

An alternative for consuming the same time may be glanced at, because 
a few floundering school superintendents have proposed (and several have 
instituted) a twelve-years course with elementary school covered in seven 
years and a five-years high school. Even the ghost of the twelve-years 
rule is potent! I believe we may dismiss the proposal to spend five years 
instead of four on present standard high school courses as an innovation 
not likely to win imitators. 

No peculiar advantage or skill explains the success in completing in six 
years standard elementary courses wherever the plan has been intelligently 
tried. Everywhere all that is attempted in the seven or eight years 
would be better accomplished, by the same teachers, in six years. There 
are, however, some points of school management which bear especially on 
this question, and I will briefly indicate six such points: 

1. The strongest and most scholarly (and therefore the best paid) 
teachers in elementary schools ought to teach the last two grades. Only 
one critical point seems generally recognized — the flrst grade. The impor- 
tance of the initial stage is indeed great (though we often hear extrava- 
gant over-statements about this) and skill for that work is recognized 
in the matter of salaries; but the last two years of the elementary school, 
especially the last year, is a stage critical for still more momentous issues, 
and the requisite force, skill, and scholarship are far more rare among 
teachers than talent to teach the little beginners as they ought to be 
taught. 

2. It is of prime importance that the question we are considering 
should not be confounded with the grounds upon which schools are so 
much censured by physicians. The doctors are right in blaming some 
schools for injury to the health of pupils; but they are mistaken in the 
oft'-hand allegation that the cause is too much learning, over-burdened 
intellects. I am opposed to "overcrowded." courses and firmly advocate 
substantial study of essential subjects, instead of dabbling in multiplied 
subdivisions of topics; but the doctors err when they allege that the 
crowding of such topics injures the health by overburdening the mind. 
It is the intelligence itself, not the nervous system, that suffers from 
such trifling. What, then, is the true cause of the facts which physicians 
cry out against? The truth is bluntly expressed in the statement that 
methods of teaching cause pupils to waste the time spent in schools and 
to devote to ill-guided study the time which ought to be given to play 



394 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 

and domestic intercourse. In the elementary school there should be very 
little home study. It is best, both for health and for learning, not to 
require of pupils outside of school hours tasks in which they need a 
teacher's explanation or guidance, but only such as they are able to do 
without assistance; for instance, their little compositions, work of mere 
copying, spelling lessons. Other matter it is generally better to read, 
discuss, and test altogether in school. 

Older pupils must do more home study; but, even in the high school, 
the definite tasks thus assigned should not often be more than one hour's 
concentrated application would accomplish; for to this has to be added 
such work as compositions and the collateral reading belonging to some 
subjects of study, — work which in its nature suits times of more leisure 
than the set periods of school hours, and which older pupils ought to 
regard rather as interesting and stimulating occupation for evenings and 
Saturdays than as a burden. 

Progress is not retarded, it is aocelerat-ed by such methods. It is a 
mistake to suppose that children can learn more studying ten hours a 
day than studying six or seven hours a day. On the contrary, children 
advance more rapidly and more thoroughly by active application during 
the shorter pediod, than by attempting to extend study over time prop- 
erly belonging to recreation and rest. Family conversation, music, games, 
enjoyable books ought not to be crowded out of the evenings at home. 
Certainly the school needs no such sacrifice. 

If pupils come to school each morning expecting to learn in school the 
greater part of the progress destined for that day, they will set to their 
work promptly, whether in periods for quiet study and the teacher's 
individual suggestions, or at times for class instruction. The habit of 
concentrated and rapid thought will develop. Nor will a pupil who feels 
that he has much to do in a short time be thinking of mischief. On the 
other hand, if pupils come to school with the feeling whether justified 
or deluded, that they have already "learned their lessons" and are ready 
to show the fact to an inquisitor {called teacher), or if they come with 
the feeling, dismayed or defiant, that they do not know the lessons they 
ought already to know, then, equally in either case, such pupils do not 
arrive at school in the attitude or spirit of learners, and only by accident 
and unintentionally do they learn as the hours drag along. Instead of 
the interest in new developments after questioning upon yesterday's work 
is over, felt by children who look forward to' learning today's lesson, 
these children, icho look 'backward to everything, sit waiting to be "called 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 395 

on," either with a vain desire to display what they learned last night, or 
with a sinking hope that the period may end before last night's neglect 
is exposed — both sorts tempted the while to mischievous diversions. 
Neither a t«xt-book nor a teacher can think for a pupil any more than 
he could breathe for him. Knowledge is never, except in a faulty figure 
of speech, a thing received as an accretion, or to be digested and assimi- 
lated; but it is always an act to be performed, a power passing from 
potentiality into actuality, and teaching is wholly and solely prompting 
and guiding one to perform certain acts. These statements, trite as they 
are to the philosopher, express truths whose general recognition by teach- 
ers would work instant reform of many errors which now defeat the 
zealous labor of thousands. It would then be realized that it is the office 
of a teacher to teach today's lessons; and American homes would be 
relieved of the veritable blight from which they now suffer in the exces- 
sive "home study" required of young children. And the conditions under 
which weary and justly irritated parents attempt to do the teaching at 
home to sleepy and equally irritated children, and teachers "hear recita- 
tions" the next day, Avould soon become a curious anecdote in the history 
of education. The right test of satisfactory progress of a pupil is that 
he should always know yesterday's lesson. Today's lesson it is the busi- 
ness of the teacher to teach him. Having defined what is meant by 
"teach" this will not suggest to anyone that the teacher either should 
or could do for a pupil the work that the learner must do, if there is to 
be any real teaching and learning. 

3. Give more attention to individual pupils than is commonly sup- 
posed to be possible with the large classes necessitated by the scant 
financial resources of public schools. Unless a class is overwhelmingly 
large it is possible for the teacher, if alertly working upon such a plan, 
to observe the difficulties and shortcomings of individual pupils and to 
give to each the needed encouragement and guidance. The plea of "no 
time" for such teaching is not valid, because it would be proved by the 
experience of a month's trial of the plan, that the progress of very nearly 
the entire class would equal that of its "quicker" half under methods 
of teaching that leave the "dull" half a hopeless drag. 

4. The pitiful consequences of foolish theory and practice concerning 
"promotions" have been alluded to. The sole proper basis for assigning 
a pupil to a particular grade is his ahility at the time in question. 
Ascertain that as best you can, and act accordingly. The application of 
any other criterion whatsoever is preposterous. Neither past behavior 



396 NOTE ON" ELEMEI^TARY SCHOOLS 

nor past diligence per se, is pertinent to the genuine question. Every 
school in which "deportment," "punctuality," etc., are used in making 
the "average" that decides the question of promotion, advertises thought- 
less mismanagement. If a pupil has been mischievous, will it help him 
or the general welfare to retain him in a grade where suitable occupation 
and interest are impossible? Unruly pupils reform spontaneously on 
advancing to more stimulating work. Almost all boys pass through a 
year or two of natural resistance to control. It is of comparatively little 
importance how such recalcitrants are punished for overt acts, if they 
are promoted according to ability to understand the studies of consecu- 
tive grades. On the other hand, docile deportment is in itself no quali- 
fication for promotion. These statements are self-evident, but they point 
to a widely needed quickening of dry bones. 

5. Marked changes in subject-matter and methods of instruction and 
discipline ought to differentiate the stages of elementary school and high 
school. Nothing would operate more effectively to retain pupils in the 
high school (the stage of results) than intelligent recognition of the won- 
drous changes in capacities and dispositions wrought by nature about the 
time when the elementary school course is finished, if an inordinate time 
is not required for that course. The standard of six years for elementary 
school, four years for high school, and four years for college or university 
undergraduate course, correspond admirably to natural stages of develop- 
ment of a normal individual entering such a system in the seventh year 
of age. It is especially significant how accurately six years for the ele- 
mentary school fits the physiological and psychological development of 
the normal child. 

Among the minor, but not unimportant means of suitable demarkation 
between the elementary school and high school is the stopping of the 
"grade" names with the end of the elementary school, and calling the 
high school classes first-year class, second-year class, third-year class, and 
fourth-year class. These simple names are more appropriate to a high 
school than the collegiate terms, freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior. 
This may seem a small matter, but I know by experience that it secui'es 
many practical advantages in both internal and external relations of 
schools. 

6. Give the teachers a free hand and hold them responsible for suc- 
cess. The substitution of regulation for genuine organization in the pro- 
fessional life and work of teachers grouped in one school or school sys- 
tem, is a tremendous obstacle to efficiency. This is an intensely practical 



NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 397 

point; nothing bears more immediately upon results. In many schools 
each teacher feels concern for only one small segment of the school's 
work, having no comprehension of, responsibility for, or authority in the 
whole. Not infrequently lack of organized co-operatin engenders positive 
habits of suspicious, repellant, or antagonistic attitudes on the part of 
those who ought to be co-workers. The fault lies mainly, and almost 
always, in the superintendent or his predecessors. Its consequences are 
not confined to poor results in studies, but appear also in the moral 
atmosphere of the school. It is a sure sign of its existence if pupils 
conceive that no teacher except the one in Avhose room they "belong" 
has responsibility for or authority over them. If it exists, it will be 
oonspicuous in "departmental" teaching. The only serious objection to 
departmental teaching at all stages is the difficulty, under the conditions 
referred to, of securing 'team work' and the personal harmony upon 
which success depends. Good results require thorough co-operation, espe- 
cially between teachers of consecutive grades. A superintendent is a 
disorganizer who does not lead teachers who have been long under his 
influence, to sincere co-operation in a natural spirit of responsibility for 
mutual support. Each teacher should be free in minor arrangements 
for executing the w^ork assigned, being held responsible for a fair measure 
of success. Each should know and appreciate the standard of accom- 
plishment required by the system of the pupils given in charge for the 
year or term; but consultation with the teachers in the grades next above 
and next below is necessary to keep the work of each in organized adjust- 
ment. Beyond the prescribed course of study and standards of efficiency 
and such schedule arrangements as must be conformed to by all, the 
superintendent should be an intelligent and sympathetic adviser, not a 
commander. The following of daily programs carried to minute divisions 
of time, peremptorily imposed by superintendents, is one of the most 
deadening influences in over-regulated schools. Along with it goes teach- 
ing that is almost exclusively addressed to the class as a whole. All 
are familiar with the usual performance under such methods — the teacher's 
questioning, the raising of hands and answers by insistent pupils, and 
the laggard rear who hardly get 'in the procession' at all, or soon fall 
out of it. 

Over-regulation is the specific symptom of disorganizing administrative 
control. The genuine organizer of any work for spiritual results must 
have the power of communicating that feeling for the dignity of manhood 
and womanhood and that sense of personal responsibility, which are essen- 



398 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAHSTING 

tial to true success in such work. Organization means life and spon- 
taneous co-operation; uniformity, beyond general limits, means death, and 
arbitrary control. 

I can add only one concluding comment. In order to appreciate fully 
the immense advantage of completing the elementary course in six years, 
it must be borne in mind that the vaunted benefits of education are not 
derivable from the childish studies of the elementary school. There a 
foundation is laid upon which something of supreme value may be built; 
but if educational processes are not somehow carried beyond that stage 
the benefits of enlightenment and breadth of mental horizon and disci- 
pline of intellectual powers, which are spoken of as the results of edu- 
cation, are not reached. On the other hand, a good high school should 
furnish the groundwork of a liberal and practical education. The powers 
of acquisition and reflection in youth during the years from thirteen to 
seventeen are underrated. Of course, no deep and specialized study is 
possible in the high school; but the mental horizon may be sufficiently 
broadened for intelligent citizenship and for individual dignity and power. 
The high school student cannot progress very far a-long any particular 
avenue, but the vistas of almost all sciences might be opened to him, and 
he might learn the trend and something of the aims and attainments of 
the main spheres of human activity. Unless parents will give their chil- 
dren the opportunities of a good high school, or some equivalent, they 
are deceived if they imagine that any of the benefits of education, of 
which they hear and talk so much, are otherwise obtainable. The ele- 
mentary school prepares children to reap the harvest belonging to the 
next four years; and a marvelously rich harvest may be garnered in those 
years. An experienced and observant teacher who should have the rare 
fortune of teaching in a high school from which the majority of the 
highest spirited youths have not been excluded by an inordinate require- 
ment of time preparatory to entering it, could not but be impressed by 
the quality and amount of what is attainable by unenervated pupils pur- 
suing a good high school course of study at the suitable ages. 

NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

A few years ago the topic of this note would have been as far removed 

from the subject of this book as any matter of great social importance 

could be. The need for effective industrial training is great, but its 

rational function in society and for the individual has been lost sight 



NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 399 

of amid a babble about "democracy" and "education" in wliich the latter 
word is used in a sense so vague and extensive that no definite or sub- 
stantial meaning is retained. "Not long ago," said Professor Grandgent, 
in December, 1912, in his presidential address to the Modern Language 
Association of America, "I listened to a shout of triumph from the head 
of a normal school. 'At last/ he cried, 'we have got the colleges where 
we want them! They can no longer dictate to us; they must take what 
we see fit to give. If we say that four years of blacksmithing make a 
suitable high school curriculum, then they must accept four years of 
blacksmithing as a preparation for college.' Here we have an absolute 
reductio ad ahsurdum. We can, of course, open our colleges to smiths, 
and turn them into smithies; but it is hardly necessary to point out that 
they will then cease to be colleges, and we shall be left with no higher 
education at all. ... What should be the purpose of education in a 
democracy? Should it be solely to fit men and women to perform effi- 
ciently their daily economic task? That is, of course, an important func- 
tion, but it cannot be all. Otherwise progress would become impossible 
as far as schooling can make it so. . . . The individuals we have to 
deal with are not machines: they are human beings of almost infinite 
capabilities, destined to be citizens and parents. They must be capable 
of living the life of the spirit, of appreciating the good things in nature, 
in conduct, and in art; they must be able to cope intelligently with 
weighty problems of public policy; they must leave behind them descend- 
ants who shall be more, rather than less, competent than themselves. 
The higher we rise in the scale of development, the less conspicuous the 
purely economic aspect of the individual becomes." 

That man's character is poisoned at the heart of it who does not appre- 
ciate highly the generic dignity and worth of every human spirit, but it 
is folly to talk and madness to act as if every individual could realize 
in this mundane span of life all generic potentialities. Yet we hear on 
every side university leaders who stand before the people crying that the 
college degree is, or is soon to be, within the reach of every American 
boy and girl! This is sheer hysteria — when it is not deceit. The right 
ideal is that a way to higlier education should be opened by the state to 
all who are fit and able to walk in it; but even the high school must 
long remain beyond the reach of the numerical majority. It is the ene- 
mies, not the friends, of that majority who cozen them with banal untruths, 
and neglect or prevent serviceable institutions which would supply present 



400 XOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

needs and uplifting tendencies. If democracy is to succeed, education 
must not be degraded to the lowest levels, but as large a part of the 
people as possible must be lifted to higher comprehension of individual life 
and social organization. 

A definite evil and a grave danger confronts us. No man should say 
that it cannot be corrected, unless he is willing to adopt the terrible 
diagnosis presented in Emile Faguet's The Cult of Incompete'itce. Let us 
hope — and lead it, not as a forlorn hope — that Faguet's acute and powerful 
analysis has omitted to take into account conserving forces which may 
redeem the civilization that seems to him doomed to advancing degradation. 

Thirteen years ago circumstances led me to make a statement on this 
subject, which is pertinent to-day. On July 1, 1901, Governor Joseph D. 
Sayers appointed me State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Texas, 
and on the 27tli day of that month a circular was issued from which the 
iollowing is quoted: 

Manual Training in the Regular Schools, and 
Industrial or Trade Schools. 

The problem of Industrial Education, as it is called, is just now 
of special importanee in Texas because of the agitation for immediate 
legislation on the subject. If this movement can be wisely guided, 
benefit will result; if not, incalculable damage. To judge from the 
greater part of recent public writing and speaking in connection with 
the movement referred to, there is urgent need to discriminate clearly 
the distinct nature and purpose of the two things which are called, 
respectively, Manual Training and Industrial Training. 

Manual training is an educational question, to be decided pro or con 
as you would decide for or against the teaching of Latin or chem- 
istry, and on the same fundamental principles: it is for a prince's 
son as well as for a blacksmith's. Industrial training, on the con- 
trary, is not strictly an educational question at all: it is related to 
-educational work merely as questions of hygiene, poverty, home en- 
vironment, etc., are related to it. On its own merits it is an affaiB 
of social economy and morals. 

Manual Training, — I value highly the educational usefulness of 
manual training regarded not as a rival but as a help to other studies. 
I believe the elTect on character may be bracing and profound; that 
it is a natural stimulus to the self-activity which is the aim of the 
whole educational regimen; tliat power is developed by expedients 



NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 401 

not otherwise available (wood-turning requires boldness and foresight 
forge-work regulation and reserve of power, and so on) ; that the 
intellect and the artistic sense are duly stimulated and have full play; 
and that interest is legitimately secured and healthfully maintained. 
Now, it may not be a great or vital question that every school should 
at once enjoy the advantages of a manual training department, but 
the advantages are real and manifold when rationally utilized, 
. . . Attention might well be given to organizing and correlating 
with manual training the perfunctory use now made in most of our 
public schools of singing and drawing. Space forbids any extended 
discussion of the matter, but I am convinced that a means for uplift- 
ing and brightening social and individual life in this commonwealth 
has been indicated in this passing suggestion. The dearth of vocal 
music among us and among our children is as sad for the present as 
it is ominous for the future; and the stupid and insincere tasks put 
upon our children in jangling upon pianos only make the situation 
worse, so far as the true pleasure and benefits of music are concerned. 

Industrial Training. — Industrial training is a totally different ques- 
tion: primarily, it looks to the teaching of handicrafts, of trades. 
Crafts of a more intellectual or scientific order constitute the sphere 
of technical schools. Trade schools have no more — and no less — to 
do \vith education than with religion; yet there are practical con- 
nections betw^een the true schools and industrial training schools 
which recommend organic relations and unity of control. . . . 

Partial Solution of the Problem. — I think industrial training can 
be provided where the need for it is most urgent without draining the 
resources of the schools. ... In all our cities where buildings 
and teachers are duplicated and reduplicated for the same grade, 
industrial training could be instituted forthwith without increasing 
the cost of maintenance. This plan, moreover, would positively benefit 
the schools proper by relieving them of pupils to w^hom the schools 
do little good, and who do harm to the schools. [There is place and 
need for reform schools in which trades are taught, but every stigma 
of any such reference should be far removed from the trade schools 
of which I am speaking. While it is true that many pupils who 
from lack of capacity or interest get no good in the regular schools, 
would be led to the trade schools, it is also true that many of our 
soiindest boys would prefer genuine trade schools. Elementary trade 



402 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

schools would in due time lead to good secondary technical schools, 
but could not lead directly to' any good college.] 

Present conditions do not satisfy the needs of those who, whether 
from poverty or choice, will not take even the instruction of proper 
elementary schools; and how to^ render this large number true service 
is a difficult and dangerous question. The industrial training of such 
children is a subject of vast economic and social importance, and 
peculiarly important in regard to the negro population. But the 
question is most urgent in the cities, and I have pointed out an easy 
solution in them. 

Meanwhile, it is needful that all true statesmen give the most 
serious study and consideration to this subject, and see to it that 
they are not carried away by any 'half-baked' schemes to set up 
industrial training at the expense of the educational work of the 
state. . . . Our civilization needs, and needs urgently, some sub- 
stitute for the discarded system of apprenticeships which was the 
means devised and practiced by our forefathers to an end for whicl^ 
we must now devise some improved means. ... I trust that our 
city school systems may, sooner or later, and one after another, set 
apart such of their buildings as may suffice to begin the experiment 
of practical industrial training. As I have said, this need not add 
to the whole cost of maintenance, and it would help, not hinder, the 
true schools; and would, at the same time, meet one of the greatest 
and most urgent needs of our civilization, in providing a way for the 
training, as skilled laborers, of an important part of our population, 
which under existing conditions is left to meet this life's struggles 
almost wholly unaided by the educational and economic system of 
the society which must ever depend so largely upon the virtue, hap- 
piness, and efficiency of this now neglected part. 

Trade schools, frankly instituted as such, would be infinitely better 
than the introduction into elementary schools and high schools of that 
which is now going by the name "vocational education." Among other 
faults of the latter may be mentioned the fact that its vague devices 
arc not truly vocational. The teaching in our elementary schools, espe- 
cially, needs thorough reformation,^'" and much of it should be along the 
lines vaguely intended in the demand for more practical teaching; but 



■Cf., p. 29. Also, Note on Elementary Schools, pp. 386-398. 



NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 403 

the term "vocational" adopted by those who are stumbling to appease a 
threatening discontent is worse than a misnomer, for it represents a mis- 
conception of both the faults of commission which should be corrected 
and the omissions which should be supplied. No instruction suitable for 
children in the general elementary schools could be properly termed 
vocaiional. 

No rational conception of demoeracy is infringed by trade schools for 
those Avho need and prefer them. Every sane democratic feeling should 
be satisfied with the attendance by children of all sorts, for a few years 
at least, in the common school; and the regular elementary and secondary 
school system is open to all. It is but recognizing the inevitable to meet 
the need for an early divergence of lines of training. To refuse this can 
only mean for many no substantial training at all, and for many others 
ill-suited and probably injurious schooling. My hopes for occidental civil- 
ization are based upon prospects of the rise of what has been called the 
democracy of individuality; that is to say, a society, not of persons in- 
creasingly like each other in all respects, but of persons increasingly spe- 
cialized in some respects — particularly in respect to efficient work for 
their own and the general livelihood. All present tendencies are not 
leveling down to the possibilities of uniformity. I see conditions that 
may compel even the most ignorant and the dreamers to appreciate and 
uphold distinctions in native ability and specialized preparation. Such 
inequalities are founded in nature and appear necessary for the perma- 
nence of any civilization. Even ranting gainsayers of all this are already 
talking about the present time approvingly (though with characteristic 
unconsciousness of their contradictions) as an "age of specialists." It has 
been well said that a society of equals or similars, each as complete as 
any, would be like a heap of sand composed of particles which do not 
cohere, and that any political house built upon it must fall. Whereas, a 
society of dissimilars is like the rock composed of particles which com- 
plement and cleave to each other, and a political house built upon it may 
stand. 

Within the last ten years some encouraging development of trade schools 
has taken place in a few public school systems; but the weak device mis- 
called "vocational education," after ramifying through the public elemen- 
tary schools and high schools, has insinuated its tentacles upwards and 
is now sapping the vigor of our institutions for higher education. The 
struggling colleges and the state universities have been most encroached 



404: NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

upon. There is no reference here to the technological departments and 
schools or to the professional schools of the modern university, but to the 
dilution of undergraduate academic curricula with a flood of "vocational" 
courses. Also, universities (especially those located in cities) may prop- 
erly encourage attendance by students of any age in any courses for which 
they are prepared, who work, either as apprentices or foremen, in shops 
and factories or other occupation; hut there ought to he no thought of 
university degrees for such students, unless such irregular studies he con- 
tinued to a presentation of the full quota of legitimate courses for a degree. 
If external shop-work does, in any instance, really make an equivalent 
of genuine college study, the fact would take care of itself by reducing 
the time and effort required in mastering such courses. In general it is 
a prostitution, and commonly it is a fraud, to give credit toward degrees 
for industrial occupation outside of college. The same principles apply 
to the so-called vocational courses, within the college, on boy-scouting, 
millinery, etc. Some such courses would be trivial anywhere; some ought 
t-o be left to trade schools; others, if offered, should be for voluntary 
attendance without "credit." If the present drift — or stampede, as the 
case may be — in many state universities is not checked and reformation 
begun, they will soon find themselves as bereft of confidence and esteem 
as lacking in usefulness. Their scramble to please "the greatest number" 
can end only in pleasing nobody. 

"What we term 'vocational training,' " says Professor Grandgent, "being 
the most 'practical' and offering no considerable difficulty to the pupil, 
is now first in favor. ... As a supplement to education or as an 
apprenticeship for those who must remain uneducated, I believe it is 
destined to render great service ; but let us not make the mistake of calling 
it education. It should prepare a boy to succeed in his business; probably 
it will, when it is better developed. But it affords no more education 
than is to be derived from the business itself. When we say that 'life is 
a school,' we are conscious that our phrase is a figure of speech: 'voca- 
tional education' is another. Perhaps the worst feature of it is that 
'vocational' subjects are so apt to be chosen, not from vocation, not with 
any intention of preparing for a career, but merely for the purpose of 
avoiding real study." Professor Grandgent lays the blame for these con- 
ditions on a "psuedo-pedagogy" and "a host of pseudo-educators too unin- 
structed to know any better." "An easy career," he says, "has been opened 
to young men not overburdened with wit or learning. Having collected 



NOTE ON INDUSTEIAL TRAINING 405 

some information about school administration and the history of peda- 
gogical speculation, a set of arbitrary formulas, some bits of dubious 
psychology, and, above all, an imposing technical vocabulary, they are 
accepted as prophets by an equally ignorant public and given control of 
our schools." 

The public is, of course, not to be blamed for ignorance of technical 
matters which can be understood only after deep preparation and thorougli 
study; its fault has lain in a propensity to regard all men as equally 
competent to execute any plan, and deem itself competent to dictate a 
plan for any purpose. The infatuated attempt to break continuity with 
the past, which in recent years has become almost hysterical, has wrought 
a general confusion and has submerged discrimination in all spheres. 

•'By our neglect of the past," says Professor Grandgent, "we have cut 
ourselves off from standards of all kinds, and hence, like the new-born 
moth, are attracted by the first glare. Dante had a word to say on this, 
many centuries ago: 'Just as the man who has lost sight of his bodily 
eyes has to depend on others for the distinction of good and bad, so he 
who possesses not the light of discrimination always follows after the 
shout, be it true or false. . . . And inasmuch as the habit of any 
virtue, moral or intellectual, cannot be assumed at once, but must be 
acquired by practice, and they practice nothing but their handicraft and 
bestow no care on other things, it is impossible for them to have judg- 
ment. . . ,' This is a passage to be meditated by our professional edu- 
cators. There was a time when schools attempted, at least, to cultivate 
discrimination and to furnish the material on which selection can be 
founded; but in these days of 'vocational training,' when pupils are en- 
couraged 'to practice nothing but their handicraft,' it is, in Dante's words, 
"impossible for them to have judgment.' And it is inevitable that in their 
blindness they should follow false g-uides; for the loudest bellow is sure 
to issue from the windiest prophet, the biggest blaze from those luminaries 
that would rather be flashlights, and dazzle for one instant, than gleam 
as modest but permanent stars in the sky.'They that be wise,' says a once 
popular book, "shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they 
that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.' But none 
of this for our Futurists, Post-Futurists, and Neo's of every description 
. . . The aggregate of knowledge, at the present day, is greater than 
ever before; but the large share-holders in this knowledge are no longer in 
control. Leadership has been assumed by the untrained host, which is 



406 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 

troubled by no doubt concerning its competence and therefore feels no 
inclination to improve its judgment. . . . Never before were condi- 
tions, so favorable to the easy diffusion of a false semblance of information. 
Cheap magazines, Sunday supplements, moving pictures have taken the 
place of books. Quickly scanned and quickly forgotten, they leave in the 
mind nothing but the illusion of knowledge. . . . The more widely 
education has been diffused, the thinner it has been spread. We have now 
reached a stage where it seems to be on the verge of reverting to the old 
system of apprenticeship to a trade." 

For my part, I take heart of grace from abundant evidence that "the 
untrained host" is troubled by doubts — perhaps of its own competence, 
probably of its demagogues, certainly of its educators. One thing is sure: 
The university abdicates its highest obligation when it merely listens for 
and tries to satisfy popular demands. It is an essential duty of a uni- 
versity to determine what is needed; and then to endeavor to lead individ- 
uals and the whole people to want what they need. 



STUDENT LIFE AND WORK 407 



VII. STUDENT LIFE AND WORK. 

As a separate subject the title of this chapter would require an 
entire book for an adequate treatment. The life and work of stu- 
dents is the vital outgrowth of the government and administration 
of institutions for higher education which is at once the purpose 
and the test of every properly conceived plan for organization or 
management. I say the oidgrowtli, not the creature, because the 
spirit of nascent manhood in its matriculants and all previous in- 
fluences of home and school and society are not inert data to a 
aniversity, but a potent reacting factor co-ordinate with its own 
influence. It is impossible to regulate the process by arbitrary 
rules, and everything pertaining to it should be conceived and 
conducted in that spirit of respect and delicate self-restraint proper 
to all dealings with living things. If educators in this country 
were half as respectful of the youths and young men they under- 
take to guide and develop, as experimenters with plants are of the 
objects of tlieir developing guidance, no need for any such book 
as I have attempted to make would exist. 

Undergraduates. 

The American university has had, in this regard, a more difficult 
duty than the German universit}', because of the need, with us, to 
make a transition in one institution from a degree of control suit- 
able for our "freshmen" and the freedom proper for our "seniors.'^ 
Here is a real difficulty, but nothing impossible. The need is 
absolute and the duty imperative. There is no occasion to alter 
the American plan of advancing to a higher institution after the 
stage of our standard high schools, which is doubtless better suited 
to our needs and spirit than the German plan would be. We have 
discussed this question, — see page 387 et seq., especially page 391, — 
but it mav be added here that Professor Paulsen, after describing 



408 UNDERGRADUATES 

some injurious effects of prolonging too far into the life of German 
youth the prescribed curricula and school-discipline of the gymnasia 
and contrasting that plan with the American college, says: 

"We cannot get away from the institutions which have grown up among 
us. But I fail to see what would prevent us from essentially approxi- 
mating this [the American college] system in our methods, and it seems 
that we are moving in that direction. . . . Let us go further, let us 
accentuate the division in our class system between the upper and middle 
classes {Unter- and Ohersekunda) ; let us give more scope in our upper 
grade to individual talent and initiative, so that special zeal and success 
in one branch, or in a group of related branches, will condone for a rela- 
tive lack of success in other branches not so well adapted to the student's 
capacity and inclination. For example, let us reduce the requirements in 
mathematics in the gymnasia for those who do not like this branch, with 
the proviso, however, that they do correspondingly better work in the 
ancient languages; or, on the other hand, let us abate somewhat our 
insistence upon correct Latin in the case of those whose talents point them 
to mathematics and physics. Or, better still, let us form a select class 
in each group into which it would be an honor to be received. It is the 
spontaneity of acquisition which gives value to knowledge, not the extent 
and uniformity of its possession. . . . The university can also maJ<:e 
an effort to bridge the chasm from its side. And here, too, the process 
has already begun; the constant increase of exercises, especially the estab- 
lishment and perfection of exercise courses for beginners, in addition to 
the seminars for the advanced students, will be serviceable for this 
purpose.*' 

This judgment of the most eminent exponent of German univer- 
sity work and ideals concurs with that of the great London Com- 
mission on University Education,* and with various facts and 
arguments submitted in previous chapters. It is the administra- 
tion, not the fundamental conception of the American college and 
university^ that is at fault. 

The scope of this book must confine its concluding chapter to a 
few aspects of student life and work closely related to the organi- 



*See page 283 et seq. 



UNDERGRADUATES 409 

zation and administration of the institution.* Aside from such 
considerations, there is no room for any extensive or descriptive 
treatment of this last topic. Many references to student life and 
work have occurred in previous chapters, which may be located by 
consulting the index under the title Students, and other titles such 
as AUiletics, Freshmen, Elective System, Graduate Departments, 
Lectures, etc. I wish I could refer readers to a vital book on 
student life in the United States of America, but if any such book 
exists I am not aware of it. The best I can do is to advise all 
(especially students) to read Paulsen's The German Universities, 
particularly its Book IV, on "Students and Academic Study/' pages 
263 to 378 of the translation** by Prof. Thilly. The differences in 
institutional arrangements in the two countries should not obscure 
the essential principles, nor will differing social adjustments con- 
fuse, for an open mind, the universal characteristics of courageous 
and refined manhood. 

"All experience,'' says Frederick Denison Maurice, "is against 
the notion that the means to produce a supply of good ordinary 
men is to attempt nothing higher. I know that nine-tenths of 
those the university sends out must be hewers of wood and drawers 
of water; but if I train the ten-tenths to be such, then the wood 
will be badly cut, and the water will be spilt. Aim at something 
noble. Make your system of education such that a great man may 
be formed by it, and there will be a manhood in your little men 
of which you did not dream." The value and true serviceableness 
of a college or university is not proportional to its bigness but to 
the character and durability of its inspiration. The first test of 
its merit is to ask, in the words of TJlrich von Hutten, whether 
''die Luft der Freiheit luehtf — are the winds of freedom blowing? 

On the part of administration, such a condition is to be secured 
mainly by wisdom and care in recruiting the faculty. After the 



*Cf., page 84. 

** Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 



410 FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY 

prerequisite scholarship, the fundamental qualification of a professor 
in an institution for higher education should be the character and 
enlightenment that restrains men from abusing legislative power; 
and there should be among them some who share the feeling 
expressed by Fichte in one of his lectures : "I frankly confess in 
the position in which Providence has placed me I should like to 
contribute ■ something to diffuse among men a manlier mode of 
thought, a stronger sense of dignity and worth, a more ardent zeal 
to fulfill their mission . . . ; so that when you will have left 
these halls and will have been scattered over the entire land, I shall 
know you to be men, in whatever parts of the world you may live, 
men whose chosen friend is truth; who receive her when she is 
driven out by the world ; Avho publicly protect her when she is slan- 
dered and culminated/^ It was some years ago, b-efore matters 
had reached their present pass, that President Andrew D. White 
said: "The preliminary^ education which many of our strongest 
men have received leaves them simply beasts of prey. It has 
sharpened their claws and whetted their tusks/' The period of 
self-education, if it is ever to arrive, arrives naturally about the 
time of college entrance. It is most important that parents and 
instructors should understand this. They should, also, know that 
(using Paulsen's words) : "Freedom is the pre-condition of self- 
education and culture. Freedom from outward compulsion is, 
therefore, the symbol of student days." The only proper prodlem 
is how to arouse in the inner man the self-responsihility that is the 
counterpart of freedom. 

This problem can never be solved by the sort of men who have 
brought to pass (as distinguished from those who have weakly 
allowed themselves to be circumvented) the presently prevailing 
arbitrarv, vascillating, and excessive regulation. Nor will it ever 
be solved by those who see in young men ojtily their deficiencies of 
information and experfence, and cannot discern the new-born 
powers: unless himself a man of rare power and genius, every 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS 411 

university instructor ought to recognize in a few of his students 
a caliber superior to his own. 

It is one of the many contradictions characteristic of the present 
confusion that a time in which children have been cast out to an 
unprecedented license, is marked by excessive peremptoriness toward 
young men and adults in general.* Members of college faculties 
who do not know how to govern little daughters as to how often, 
at what hours, and in what company they go to picture shows, 
have undertaken to fix the number of times a young man may call 
in one month at the chapter house of a friend ! Many so-called 
universities have surpassed the political riot of law-making. This 
fact, I take it, is partly due to their seclusion and lack of respon- 
sibility. The economic effects of the edicts of our legislatures puts 
some curb upon the political law-makers. 

I say edicts of our legislatures. It is an instance of the conse- 
quences of the break with the past that laiowledge of what has 
hitherto been the meaning of law no longer remains among those 
who are so busily putting extemporaneous edicts in the place of 



*0n the other hand, discrimmation has been grossly lacking in some 
who advocate freedom when it is unseasonable as w^ell as when it is 
seasonable. If — say such heedless ones — the elective system and self- 
responsibility are good in the college, they must be good in the high 
school and in the elementarj^ school. So are nurtured the little anarchists ; 
and when an anxious citizen protests against, for instance, a "strike" by 
children on account of the removal of a teacher, he is likely (often through 
mere inexpertness) to extend his censure to the free election of studies 
in colleges. No less a man than ex-President Taft recently slipped into 
this identical confusion: "We are giving our boys and girls too much 
freedom. . . . We have had the ridiculous exhibition of school children 
striking because a favorite teacher was transferred and weak-minded 
parents looking with pride upon the courage and enterprise of their off- 
spring. ... A mistake of the same kind was made in our univer- 
sities in the adoption of the general optional system." Eminently right 
is his censure of the unseasonable liberties; but it may at least be said 
that, whether a mistake or not, freedom of study in universities is cer- 
tainly not the same mistake. The best general answer is given in those 
words of ancient wisdom: "To everything there is a season, and a time 
to every purpose." 



412 DISTINCTION" BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS 

all law. They do not know what classic writers mean when they 
speak of "reverence for law/' or of "a state governed hy law.'^ 
Constitution would be the only word in their vocabulary that might 
suggest the meaning of law, although our constitutions have come 
to deal so much with particulars, and to be, therefore, so subject 
to amendment, that they are almost as extemporaneous as the 
edicts or decrees of an arbitrary ruler. The supremacy of law 
means essentially the protection of the individual and minorities 
against the will of monarchs or majorities. This very idea has 
become almost incomprehensible to our politicians and teachers of 
civil government. Yet all the old phrases about reverence for law 
are retained, — as if that could be reverenced which is always on 
the point of being changed.* Where laws are revered they are 
changed reverently. It becomes necessary from time to time to 
alter laws or to enact new laws, but where there is any right con- 
ception of law** this will be done with many precautions and due 
deliberation. 

"This distinction," says M. Faguet, ^^etween true law, that is 



*Our federal Congress during the ten years ending 1909 considered 
146,471 bills and enacted 15,782. During the same period the British 
Parliament considered 6251 bills and enacted 3822, and the Parliament 
considers and acts upon a great many subjects not dealt with by the 
Congress. Our state legislatures and direct amending of state constitu- 
tions add enormously to the pandemonium of emergency proclamations. 
Yet it should be borne in mind that the autonomy reserved for the States 
of the Union was the only bulwark that could protect a republic of con- 
tinental extent against being swept by one plebiscite into disrupting inno- 
vations. When rash reformers have precipitated one State into some folly, 
its bitter experience may save all or some of the others from the same 
mistake; or if the frenzy spreads from State to State, the time required 
allows some to be convalescing before other® are infected. This principle 
is expounded in classic works and was understood several generations ago 
by all well educated men and was familiar to a great many of the unedu- 
cated. 

**"Owing to some chance arising out of the nature rather than out of 
the intelligence of mankind," says Montesquieu, "it is sometimes necessary 
to alter laws, but the case is rare and when it does arise it should be 
handled with a reverent touch." 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS 413 

to say, venerable law, framed to endure, a part of a co-ordinate 
scheme of legislation, and an emergency law which is merely a 
decree like the wishes of a tyrant, constitutes the whole difference, 
if we could realize it, between the sociologists of antiquity and 
those of to-day. By the term Law, the ancient and the modern 
sociologists mean two different things and this is the reason for 
so many misunderstandings. When he speaks of law, the modern 
sociologist means the expression of the general will at such and 
such a date, 1910, for instance. The ancient sociologist would 
consider that the expression of the general will in the second year 
of the 73rd Olympiad was not law at all but a decree. ... A 
'constitution,^ therefore, to adopt Aristotle's terminology, is a state 
which obeys laws, that is to say, laws framed by its ancestors."* 



*Describing present conditions in France, Faguet says: "New laws are 
made for every little daily incident in politics. . . . The dominant 
faction only makes laws to protect itself against an adversary who is, or 
is thought to be, already in the jfield, or it introduces a hurried, ill- 
digested reform under the pressure of an alleged scandal. . . . Every- 
thing that happens in the morning is dealt with in the evening as it 
might be in the village pot-house. The legislative chamber is an exag- 
gerated reflection of the gossiping public. Now it ought not to be a copy 
of the country, it ought to be its soul and brain. But when a national 
representative assembly represents only the passions of the populace it 
cannot be otherwise than what it is. In other words, modern democracy 
is not governed by laws but by decrees, for emergency laws are no better 
than decrees. A law is a heritage, consecrated by long usage, which men 
obey without stopping to think whether it be law or custom. It forms 
part of a coherent, harmonious, and logical whole. A law improvised for 
an emergency is merely a decree. This is one of the things that Aristotle 
saw better than anyone. He comments frequently upon the essential and 
fundamental distinction between the two, and explains how it is as dan- 
gerous to misunderstand as to ignore it. I quote the passage where he 
brings this out most forcibly : 'A fifth form of democracy is that in which 
not the law but the multitude has the supreme power, and supersedes 
the law by its decrees. This is a state of affairs brought about by the 
demagogues. . . . The many have the power in their hands, not as 
individuals but collectively. . . . And the people, who is now a mon- 
arch, and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical 
sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honour, this sort 
of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to 



414 WHERE THE WINDS OF FREEDOM BLOW 

Although, in the nature of the case, there was a necessity for a 
new constitution to begin a new order, George Washington and 
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had substantially the 
same conception of law as Aristotle. Objection to change as such 
is almost as foolish as contempt of the established as such; but, 
evidently, the obligation rests upon innovators to understand and 
to consider the purpose and effect of any institution they propose 
to abrogate. Today the majority of those who lecture officially or 
gratuitously about civil government and civic duties appear to be 
as ignorant as they are contemptuous of nearly every consenstis 
sapientum in the sphere of their rash adventures. 

In the atmosphere of an unspoiled university — in which the 
winds of freedom are blowing, the faculty depends, and depends 
safely, on the older students to be the most effective influence for 
the right guidance and control of student life. Even in regard 
to the choice of studies, '^^sensible older fellow-students," as Paulsen 
says, "are the most accessible and perhaps also the best advisers.'' 
Cardinal Newman, in his lectures on the nature of university edu- 
cation, explains how "the youthful community will constitute a 
whole, — administer a code of conduct, and furnish principles of 
thought and action." "It will give birth to a living teaching 
which in course of time will take the shape of a self-perpetuating 
tradition, or a genius loci which haunts the home where it has been 
born, and which imbues and forms, more or less, and one by one, 
every individual who is successively brought under its shadow." 
Of course, instruction by and close personal contact with the mem- 
bers of a free and competent faculty are the paramount forces in 
the right development of the student; but when a youth enters a 



other forms of monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike 
exercise a despotic rule. . . . The demagogues make the decrees of the 
people override the laws, and refer all things to the popular assembly. 
. . . Such a democracy is fairly open to the objection that it is not a 
constitution at all. ... If democracy be a real form of government, 
the sort of constitution in wliich all things are regulated by decrees is 
clearly not a democracy in the true sense of the word.' " 



GENUINE ADVANCE BEYOND SECONDARY SCHOOL 415 

university the time* has come for him to form himself into an 
independent personality. If such development is ever to take place 
in him, it must come through his own self-activity and (generally) 
before he is twenty years old. It is for this reason that liberty 
must be given. The student years in a true university ought to be 
freer from external compulsion than any later years of business 
and family duties can be, because the youth must be exposed to 
freedom at this stage if independent personality is to exist among 
grown men. As Paulsen explains: "The pupil in the high school 
has a definite amount of work assigned to him every day; the 
university student selects his field of study, his university, his 
teachers, and the lectures to be taken. And he also assumes an 
independent critical attitude towards what he hears or reads." 
AVe have in this not a choice but a necessity if any genuine advance 
beyond the high school is to be made. There is no other way. 
If you keep the young m.en pupils, you cannot have any students 
at all. 

It only remains for the university teacher to inspire, by the 
value and force of what he offers, that industry which is the best 
safeguard against all minor vices; and to inculcate, chiefly by his 
own life and character, that self-restraint, self-reliance, and re- 
spect for the personality, liberty, and privacy of others, upon 
which all great virtues are founded. 

The objections offered against freedom to choose studies are 
thoroughly characteristic. It is said that the youths will choose 
worthless "snap" courses if not compelled to do otherwise. Com- 
pelled by whom? By the men who authorize or deliver those 
worthless courses ! It would be to laugh, were the issues less grave. 
The predicament is not helped by the mere fact that there yet 
remain in every faculty men who offer worthy courses ; for until 
the present tide is reversed, the same majorities that now authorize 
credits for degrees for the "snap" courses would dictate all pre- 



*Cf., pp. 270-272. 



416 A SUICIDAL MISTAKE 

^riptions. There can be no remedy until the strong men and 
genuine scholars will rouse themselves from their slough of despond, 
and — instead of saying "What's the use?" and absenting them- 
selves from faculty meetings or sitting silent as deans introduce 
incessant vagaries — will study this matter and then boldly denounce 
all foolishness and deceit^ and resist the log-rolling for numbers by 
misgoverned departments. Unless the proper men find courage to 
do this, they will soon find as little of outward respect for their call- 
ing as they now have of inner satisfaction. To talk about confining 
his interest to his science and letting his university go to the dogs, 
is not only a craven policy, but also a suicidal mistake by every 
man who has thus closed his ears to the call for resistance. The 
case is desperate for the majority of state universities (and all 
universities are more or less involved) unless such men will rise 
from their lethargy. They are able to whip out the trafficers and 
money changers from their temple; but to do so they must feel 
that just indignation which puts coward fear far from a man. 

In regard to personal conduct, attendance on exercises and lec- 
tures, etc., the need of proper modifications for the undergraduates 
in x\merican universities has been pointed out. Eeasonable regu- 
lations for dormitories and requirements for regular attendance 
are proper for "freshmen''; but care should be taken to allow 
increasing freedom so that the "seniors" may go naturally to the 
full freedom that belongs to the later stages of university life and 
work. As I have stated, the proper problem for the faculty in 
this matter is how to arouse the self-responsibility which is the 
right counterpart of freedom; and this general view of the funda- 
mental principles must be closed with the following passages from 
Professor Paulsen's book: 

"Responsibility is the correlate of this freedom. The less of external 
■compulsion there is, the more imperative is the duty of self-control. Who- 
ever confounds freedom with license, misunderstands its meaning; it is 
given to the individual not that he may do as he pleases, but that he 
may learn to govern himself. 



DANGERS TO BE CONFRONTED 417 

"The danger of missing the right road is not small. Many do not know- 
exactly what to do with their time; they try one thing, then another; 
glance into this science and then into that one; pick up one piece of 
work, then another, only to drop it again. We ought not to judge of this 
attitude too harshly. Not infrequently such a state of vacillation is due 
to an instinctive desire to come into touch with things and men; the time 
is not lost if the nature of the student is broadened and he gradually 
succeeds in discovering what is suited to him. Sensible older fellow- 
students who have gone through the same experience and have found 
themselves, are the most accessible and perhaps also the best advisers. 

"Others are encouraged by such freedom and the difficulty of making 
a start, to abandon themselves, for the time b^ing, to taste the joys and 
pleasures of student life in an indiscriminate and aimless sort of fashion. 
That, too, may be pardoned.. . , In case new and vigorous impulses for 
work spring up after a moderate period of rest and abandon, . . . the 
experience will not be without its value, teaching that it is not possible 
to ground one's life and happiness upon love of pleasure. 

"The danger becomes acute when, accustoming himself to a life without 
work and duties, the student gradually sinks into a state of inertia, which, 
occasionally interrupted by good resolutions and futile attempts to carry 
them out, finally degenerates into a kind of chronic exhaustion of the will. 
It is a danger to Avhich the more indolent natures are exposed in our 
system. The suddenness of the transition from the long, rigid cur- 
riculum of the school [see pp. 408-409] to the absolute freedom of a 
course of study wholly left to the individual's own judgment and energy, 
helps to magnify the danger. And then the feelings of discontent and 
weariness which are inseparably connected Avith a life of idleness lead to 
the use of the various narcotics by means of which human beings seek 
to disguise the inner emptiness of their lives. Fichte has described this 
phenomenon: 'Laziness is the source of all vices. To enjoy as much as 
possible and to do as little work as possible, that is the problem of the 
depraved nature, and the many attempts which are made to solve it are 
the vices of the same.' . . . 

"I mention still another danger of freedom; the degeneration of youth- 
ful exuberance into spiritual unbridledness and unrestraint. Goethe de- 
scribes it in the second part of Faust. . . . V/uo will net think of 
Nietzsche? . . , It is true the fermentation of the student days evap- 



418 HONEST DEGREES 

orates, not infrequently with astonishing rapidity; but the wine is in 
consequence often not the best. . . . 

''It is enough to have suggested the false and deceptive notions of free- 
dom. True, freedom is that alone which Plato contrasts with the un- 
bridledness of desires; the rule of the divine part of the soul over the 
lusts and desires, the feelings and passions of the 'irrational' part. The 
purpose of academic freedom is to achieve this inner freedom in the battle 
with oneself and one's environment." 

If the right general principles be comprehended particulars will 
usually be rightly determined. Also, the majority of the men who 
have participated in the particular mistakes referred to in this 
book are quite able to apply any fundamental principle clearly 
understood by them. But they have not taken the trouble to 
reflect comprehensively upon these matters. They are responsible 
for theni; but they have timidly surrendered them to officious per- 
sons whose aim is ever-increasing numbers and whose method con- 
sists in floundering appeals for popularity. 

It might naturally occur to one familiar with the inner currents 
of university affairs, that the main temptation to innumerable 
errors would be removed at one stroke if the undergraduate degree 
were abolished. Hypothetically that is true; and, of course, Ger- 
many does very well Avithout baccalaureate degrees. It would be 
comparatively easy for honest men and scholars to uphold a fair 
standard for the doctorate if the preceding period and work were 
not corrupted by the prizes-for-all policy. But no such simple 
remedy is practicable. Little as the fact is recognized by present- 
day reformers, it is extremely difficult to break away from an insti- 
tution that has grown up in the life of a people, unless it be a 
matter over which popular passions have been excited. In this case 
probably the only way out is to be honest in administering the 
degrees which custom requires of our universities. 

In its inner management every college and university is contin- 
ually on trial in this matter, but many of them were recently put 
to an open test by an inquiry submitted to a large number of col- 



HONEST DEGREES 419 

leges and universities (from a conference between their own rep- 
resentatives and representatives of a number of medical schools), 
asking each whether it would be willing to make arrangements ta 
confer its A. B. degree on ex-students who completed "two or three 
years' college work and one or two years in a Class A plus medical 
school." Prompt responses were not numerous, but they were 
t3rpical. One answered that it was already following the plan 
with one medical school and would be pleased to make similar 
arrangements with any school of the class mentioned; other re- 
sponses made by presidents were pro and con; one university faculty 
took action, and sent the following admirable answer: 

Be it resolved, . . ., 

1. That we are glad, in so far as it is possible, to arrange our courses 
in biologj'-, chemistry, and physics so as to meet the admission require- 
ments of the best medical colleges. That we are now doing this is evi- 
dent from the fact that our graduates are readily admitted to the medical 
school of Johns Hopkins University. 

2. That we Avill co-operate with the medical schools in every way 
practicable to eliminate duplication of work in college and medical school 
whenever such duplication exists. 

3. That we do not regard a year in a medical school as having the 
same purpose or being in any sense equivalent to the senior year in 
college; that we regard the two fields of education as essentially different 
and distinct. We are therefore opposed to any plan whereby the bachelor's 
degree shall be given upon the completion of less than four years of 
college work. 

This institution stood the test. Its sane and faithful action is 
not only pleasing but also encouraging, because the majority of 
the institutions waited, perhaps, to see "how the cat would jump'' 
and some of them may be strengthened to be likewise faithful. 
The medical schools, like other professional schools, do confront 
a serious difficulty in the inordinate time required by the usual 
public school system and college course combined. But how would 
that real difficulty and abuse be remedied by conferring an un- 
earned academic desrree? If a student 2:oes to a medical school 



420 A SUGGESTIOX TO UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 

after only freshman and sophomore college work, or without senior 
work, the true worth of his preparation for the given medical 
studies, and of the latter themselves, are what they are; he receives 
the M. D. degree. VHij, in the name of honesty, should an5^one 
wish the college degree to be gratuitously added? Such immoral- 
ity would not be possible in reputable institutions, or in normal 
3-oung men, except as the consequence of an insidious corruption 
wrought by the theory and practice exposed and discussed in pages 
333 to 349 of the last preceding chapter. Eeal remedies have also 
been explained — pages 387 to 398 (especially page 391) and pages 
353 to 357. The eight-years elementary school has been our 
colossal error : two years are worse than wasted there. Also, proper 
freedom and ^^credit for quality'^ (according to the plan of the 
University of Missouri, for instance) would allow the undergrad- 
uate degree to be earned by men of sufficient ability in three years. 
There is nothing sacred about the four college years as a period 
of time. It merely means, or ought to mean, that fairly strong 
students may do the work in four years. It ought to be a corollary 
that exceptionally strong students might finish in three years; 
that any attentive student might fail without reprimand or re- 
proach and might repeat diligent efforts to win credits as long as 
he desired; and that decidedly weak students should never receive 
degrees at all. Negligence at earlier stages should be subject to 
discipline; later, unless wanton and excessive, it need receive only 
its natural penalty of failure. Undesirable students would elimi- 
nate themselves from strong courses (and so from the institution) 
far more effectively than deans eliminate them from cheapened 
courses by ^"dropping" a few scapegoats. 

If I may address only one word directly to undergraduate stu- 
dents, I will submit a suggestion of the importance of the industry 
of the minute not only for ease and success in college studies, but 
as a life habit. It is, also, at every stage of life, the best guard 
against all minor vices. If this item of life-wisdom be heeded in 



GRADUATE DIVISION 421 

youth, both tlie accomplishment and the pleasures of life will be 
greatly enlarged. Among the younger generation of men who 
profess scholarship I observe some who have never read a great 
book and few books of any sort. They have looked at passages 
in some great books and have read articles about them, but a 
whole volume is too much for them. Had such men learned how 
to use the minutes, this intellectual timidity would not have weak- 
ened them as it has, nor would they as teachers have brought up a 
generation of students who would be dismayed if a book were 
assigned for collateral reading — students who expect only a para- 
graph on a given page to be assigned and not too many of them. 
This attitude and practice has developed many men who try to 
pass off rumors of culture and scholarship, gathered from magazines 
and fragmentary references to the literature of special subjects, in 
place of the vital and comprehensive grasp which could easily have 
been attained by better courage and the industry of the minute. 
Most men have had plenty of time during youth to read, independ- 
ently of school or college tasks, all the greatest monuments of 
universal literature (which is the surest way to become a free and 
strong man), and during manhood to read all the most important 
masterpieces of their specialties — re-reading the while everything 
in the former pasturage that appealed most vitally, as recalled in 
after life. Every important book should be read (at least for the 
first time) as an organic whole; no great or valuable work can be 
otherwise comprehended. With the industry of the minute, youth 
and man may do all this and yet give much more time to gracious 
intercourse with friends and family and to rejuvenating relaxations 
than is usual in our present civilization. 

Graduate Division. 

Eecognition of the fact that post-baccalaureate studies and re- 
search are an essential feature of a university came slowly in this 
country. The principle is no longer disputed, though practice lags 
sadly. The Association of American Universities requires a strong 



422 GRADUATE DIVISION 

(comparatively) graduate division as the chief qualification for 
membership. 

Advantages of the commingling of undergraduate and post-grad- 
uate students have been indicated in a previous chapter.* Presi- 
dent Eliot always championed this principle. He sa3^s, in discuss- 
ing the elective system: 

"It is another object of a broad elective system to mix students of the 
different college classes together, and to mix graduates with undergrad- 
uates. . . . Almost every course of instruction largely resorted to in 
colleges where the elective system is broad contains graduates, members 
of all the college classes, and special students all mixed together. . . . 
This mixing of students of different ages, and different academic status, 
is an unqualified advantage; provided that all are united in a common 
purpose to master the course they are attending. , . . The correct- 
ness of the principle laid down by anticipation in 1872 [at Harvard] has 
been abundantly demonstrated. Graduate and undergraduate students are 
to be found together in scores of the courses of instruction now [1908] 
offered by Harvard University. . . . The grouping of students of vari- 
ous ages and various academic standing by their subjects of study has 
certain valuable social effects. It leads to intercourse among students 
based on like tastes and intellectual interests. There is no better starting 
point for a college friendship than sympathy in an intellectual pursuit, 
or than a common devotion to an interesting teacher. ... A pre- 
scribed course alike for all leaves no freedom to the student in his studies, 
and imposes on iiim no responsibility. Here as everywhere else, it is only 
under a regime of liberty that the individual can acquire the capacity 
for self-direction and self-control, and the sense of responsibility for his 
own conduct. A college in which a good elective system prevails furnishes 
instruction in great variety, offers guidance and aid in the work of the 
student, and holds rigid examinations; but it throws the responsibility 
of selecting his fields of work on the student himself." 

True university teaching does not deal necessarily with advanced 
subjects^ but consists in treating even elementary subjects in an 
advanced (that is, philosophical and scientific) way. There ought 



*See pp. 283-286. Cf., also, p. 328. 



DEPARTMEXTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 423 

to be no other sort of teaching in a college. As far as my observa- 
tion goes, only men who do no true university teaching hold that 
a course (when it has no definitely prerequisite course, or none such 
has been omitted) cannot be suited to students of different rank. 
I have never heard a university professor — or a preacher — who com- 
plained of his trouble to avoid "talking over the heads'^ of his 
hearers, whose hearers did not complain that he hit them "below 
the belt.'*' The college teacher ^rho has never noticed that some 
freshmen are stronger and more mature than some seniors is a 
poor judge of intellectual ability. In the graduate division, as 
at previous stages, the need is not for arbitrary statutes but for 
worthy courses. Offer strong courses of instruction and research, 
worthy of credits for the Ph. D. degree, and do not give unearned 
credits, — and ever} thing will take care of itself to far better effect 
than could result from any arbitrary requirements whatsoever 
about the rank of students to be admitted. Unprepared students 
would seldom attend such courses; and if a course be worthy of 
credit toward the doctorate, certainly there can be no valid objec- 
tion to crediting it toward the baccalaureate. 

Intrinsic prerequisites for every course should be upheld by 
the department concerned. If a department, whether from de- 
ficient scholarship or lack of sound morality, is unable or unwill- 
ing to do this, there is no remedy except to recruit its faculty 
with better men — provided the organization of the department is 
as it ought to be.* Of course in many cases the department is 
organized to give a "head of the department"' dictatorial power, 
with associates divested of power and responsibility: first correct 
such malorganization, and the same men may promptly develop 
sound policies and practice. 

Responsibility for the instruction and the research and the poli- 
cies of each department should in due part be imposed upon and 
fulfilled by every member of its staff. This is the essential prin- 

*See section Department Organization, Chapter V. 



424 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 

ciple^, and any form of organization that precludes this proper 
relation will cause (in the long run) all the disorders manifested 
separately and at various stages in the particular cases presented 
by many different universities. A travesty of this principle is 
often voiced in sentimental drivel by some upholders of the con- 
tradictory usurpation, when they protest how much they wish 
their powerless subordinates would "feel"' an interest in the de- 
partment and in the university, and so forth. The true principle 
is no such soft affair; also, if rational interest and responsibility 
were felt, the proper reform would be stoutly demanded and 
quickly obtained. Those who do the university's essential work 
should constitute the primary source of authority, conditioned 
only by the state or commuiiity or corporation maintaining the 
institution. The proper relation between the state or corpora- 
tion and the faculty is the natural foundation for right organiza- 
tion: and faculty participation in the government of universities 
is, therefore, the most fundamental of all needed reforms.* The 
internal abuses of departmental organization are more preposter- 
ous, but they are less fundamental and could be far more easily 
corrected. 

The following extract from an article by Professor J. B. John- 
ston, Universitv of Minnesota, describes characteristic vices that 
tend to develop out of the prevalent departmental organization. 
It was not given in Chapter Y, because (through the deferred 
and impeded completion of this work) that chapter was printed 
before his article was published in Science, December 26, 1913. 
It is pertinent, however, again at this point. As shown in Chap- 
ter Y, some of our strongest universities have recently reorganized 
their departments in the way we advise. Also, the reader will 
understand that the conditions described by Professor Johnston 
are in many cases only partially realized. His generalizations, 



*See pp. 118-135. 



DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 425 

however, truly indicate the tendency of the form of organization 
in question, and are fully experienced in some typical cases. 

"A head of department may carry on for years policies which are not 
approved by a single member of his staff; may absent himself from all 
teaching; may neglect to do any research work or contribute anything to 
the advancement of his science; may pursue constantly a policy of selfish 
aggrandizement for which the department suffers both in the esteem of the 
university and in the decrease of scientific work which the members of 
staff can do; may deliberately sacrifice the interests of the students to 
his personal ambitions, and may in these ways cause constant friction and 
great waste of energy throughout the college — all this while maintaining 
a pretense, or even a belief, that he is a most public-spirited and useful 
member of the faculty. The head may conduct his department in such a 
way as to make research impossible and even drive men out of his depart- 
ment because they do research, all the while that he himself talks of the 
importance of research. . . . He may suppress the individualism of 
his staff members, ignore any suggestions which they may make, and dis- 
miss them if they insist upon their ideas. He may falsify the reports as 
to the teaching and other work done by himself and by members of his 
staff. If subordinate members of the staff have different ideas as to the 
conduct of the department they are overruled by the head, and if any ques- 
tion of bad policy or of injustice is brought to the stage of investigation 
by the president, that ofiicer is governed by the principle that all matters 
of testimony must be construed by him in a light as favorable as pos- 
sible to the head of the department. The president is bound to do this 
because he is dependent upon his heads of departments for information, 
advice, and executive assistance. The 'heads of departments' thus become 
a system which involves the president and from the toils of which he can 
not easily extricate himself. 

"It is a matter of common knowledge that in some departments no 
member of staff is asked for his opinions or is encouraged to hold or ex- 
press independent views, that younger members of the faculty commonly 
dare not express themselves publicly or go to the president or dean in 
matters in which they differ from the heads of their departments, and 
that generally the department head assumes that the decision of any ques- 
tion resides with the 'responsible head,' regardless of the views of his 
subordinates. There is no way in which the members of staff can influ- 



426 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 

ence the policy of their department, there is no channel by which the 
facts can be brought effectively to the notice of the president or govern- 
ing board, and there is no assurance in our present form of organization 
that the welfare of the staff or their opinions as to the welfare of the 
university would receive consideration if opposed to the desires of the 
department head. . . . 

"These heads have in consequence come into control of the sources of 
information to the executive, have jealously guarded their great powers, 
and are able to direct departmental and university policies through hold- 
ing the president in ignorance and their subordinates in contempt. In 
other words, university control has come to be vested in a system of 
irresponsible heads of departments. ... Its more serious effects are 
that it lowers the efl&ciency and the moral and spiritual tone of the whole 
institution, that it wastes the time and energy of whole staffs in order 
that the head may take his ease or satisfy his ambitions. Moreover, tak- 
ing away from faculty members the responsibility for the conception and 
execution of university policies is the best possible way to break down 
the practical efficiency of these men and to reduce the college professor 
by a process of natural selection to the impractical, inexperienced hireling 
that he is popularly supposed to be. Whether this is in part the cause 
of the wretched teaching which is done in our universities and of the 
lack of standards of work and of character for the student, I leave you 
to judge. . . . 

"The internal organization of the university should have reference 
solely to efficiency in teaching and research. The organization should be 
created by the members of the staff by virtue of their sovereign powers 
within the institution. The first natural subdivision of the university is 
that into departments based upon the relations of the fields of knowledge. 
The process of subdivision of subjects and creation of new departments 
has gone too far and must be reversed. Under the old order of things 
the only way for a man of parts to gain recognition and infiuence which 
he was capable of using, was to become the head of a department or the 
dean of a college. This accounts for the creation of many new depart- 
ments and schools for which there was no need. Administration could be 
simplified, duplication of work, apparatus, books, and supplies could be 
avoided, and a closer correlation and a better spirit and more stimulus 
to scholarly work could be secured by the creation of larger departments 
based on close relationship of subject-matter. 



DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 427 

"The staff of such large departments might number ten, twenty, or 
more men. In the nature of things the organization within such a de- 
partment is based upon the personal interest of each member of the staff 
in the success and welfare of the department, and its object should be to 
place the resources of the department in the fullest degree at the com- 
mand of the student and to facilitate research. These things can be 
secured only where there is harmony among the staff and where the ideas 
of the staff are carried out in the administration of the department. 

"All important business should be done in staff meetings. The chair- 
man should administer department affairs according to the decisions and 
by the authority of the staff and should represent the staff in relations 
with other departments. Within the department there should be the 
greatest practical freedom of the individual in teaching and research, to- 
gether with publicity of results. Subdivision of the field covered by the 
department, organization and assignment of work would be done in staff 
conference. Publicity regarding the number of elective students, percent- 
age of students passed and failed, average grades given, research work 
accomplished, and so forth, would furnish opportunity for comparison, 
friendly rivaly, self-criticism, and improvement of the work of each teacher. 

"The first step toward improvement of the organization of state uni- 
versities would be the organization of department staffs to bear the re- 
sponsibilities and to direct the work of the department through an elected 
chairman. The second step would be the gradual combination of smaller 
into larger departments. The next important step would be the breaking 
down of the boundaries between colleges on the side of teaching and in- 
vestigation, making each student perfectly free to study where and what 
he will, subject only to the regulation of departments and to means 
of gaining his own ends. Some present schools and colleges would take 
again their proper places as departments, others would be dissolved. 

"Simplification in university work and administration is the crying need 
next to independence and responsibilit}- of the members of the faculty. 
The endless red tape of business administration could be largely done 
away with by the logical completion of the budget system. The budget 
having been made by the governing board, each department should be 
perfectly free to expend its own quota of funds by vote of its staff with- 
out supervision or approval of anybody — and should be held responsible 
for the results secured from year to year. Nobody can know so well how 
money should be expended as the staff who are to use the things pur- 



428 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 

chased, no one knows so well where to get things or how to get them 
promptly when needed, none feels so directly and keenly the effects of 
misuse of money, none will so carefully guard its resources as the de- 
partment iself, ... In establishing common storerooms, purchasing 
agents, and the like, the first and chief step should be to ask of the mem- 
bers of the staff throughout the university, how can the administration help 
you in your work through such agencies as these, instead of thinking how 
these agencies can remove from the departments the ultimate control of 
their work. Time and money may be wasted at a frightful rate through 
fear to place responsibility and confidence where they belong — a fear which 
is well-founded on our present system of irresponsible heads of depart- 
ments. 

"Simplification in the administration of teaching would be favored by 
the dissolution of the colleges and the setting free of the elective system 
under a few simple regulations as to the combination of elementary and 
advanced courses and of major and cognate work which would be neces- 
sary for an academic degree, and as to the prescribed curriculum in a 
professional course. 

"What is needed is few-er regulations and better teaching; fewer snap 
courses, fewer substitutions and special dispensations; less care for the 
poor student and more food for the good student; less interest) in sending 
forth graduates and more measuring up of students against standards of 
honesty, industry, and self-judgment. . . . 

"Our universities are laboring under a bureaucratic form of govern- 
ment in which the initiative rests cheifly with the heads of departments, 
in which there is a constant struggle for power among the bureau heads, 
in which these same heads are the chief source of information and ad- 
vice to the executive, in which most of the faculty have no voice in fram- 
ing policies, and in wiiich — at its worst — the student is concerned only 
to be counted and the public only to be milked. The extreme of degrada- 
tion is reached w-hen research is wholly neglected and teaching is regarded 
as only the excuse for material aggrandizement. 

"The bad state of affairs which we see every now and then in this or 
that department or college in all our universities can not be regarded as 
the free choice of any average group of men. I can not conceive of any 
of these things being voted by members of a staff. . . . The remedy is 
to recognize the primary interest of every member of the staff and to 
establish representative government in the university. On the whole and 
in the long run the combined judgment of the members of the staff of 



429 

any department is sure to be better than that of any individual. Self- 
government stimulates individual initiative and calls forth ideas for the 
common good. The enjoyment of freedom and responsibility will make of 
our faculty morally strong and practically efficient men, and will call into 
the profession capable men, men robust in intellect and imagination, in- 
stead of the weaklings who now barter their souls for shelter from the 
perils of a competitive business world. 

"It may be true in a legal sense that the state through the board of 
regents now hires the members of the university faculty. But men to do 
university work can not he hired. Those of the faculties who now do 
university work do it not because they are paid living wages, but because 
they love the work. It has been one of the great fallacies of human his- 
tory to suppose that workmen can be hired. When you hire or enslave 
a man you secure only mechanical service. The world's work can not 
be done by hired muscle alone, but requires personal interest, moral char- 
acter and entire manhood. . . . Freedom of speech and complete self- 
government are necessary to the best interests of a university. A whole 
staff is together more capable than any one man. Suppression of staff 
members who speak without authority of the head is the suppression of 
truth and initiative. It has resulted and must result in the selection of 
weak men for the faculty and in narrowness, bigotry, and provincialism 
in the institution. Self-government will draw strong men into the fac- 
ulty, will stimulate initiative, will make possible and encourage progres- 
sive administration, and will bring to mental endeavor on the part of 
both student and teacher the freshness of the morning air, the pursuit of 
a goal of one's own choosing, and satisfaction, in the achievement of one's 
ideals." 

I trust that this extract from Professor Johnston's article may 
help to convince all readers who are in any way responsible for 
the government of an institution of higher education, that wise 
and courageous men for the needed leadership would arise in 
almost every faculty, if such organization as is advocated in this 
book were instituted. It is the only way out. Advisers to tlie 
contrary, who assert that the men who constitute the faculties are 
incompetent to take part in either the management of their o\vn 
departments or the government of the university, generally indict 



430 RESEARCH 

themselves as the selectors of the unfit persons; but their opinion 
has been too broadly inferred from the character of the individuals 
who aie brought into prominence and overtempted by a wrong 
organization. They do not realize that the more competent and 
upright men, seeing themselves powerless and their counsels dis- 
regarded (if not flouted), have withdrawn from avoidable activi- 
ties, and that their reticence means not ignorance but despair. 
It is doubtless true that the highest order of manhood would have 
shown more of ^the courage of convictions' than has been nic-ni- 
fested; but it would be unreasonable to expect general self-sacri- 
fice for the principles involved, or to expect many men to incur- 
voluntarily risk of the embarrassment which an impecunious 
scholar must face in a social environment such as theirs. Mag- 
nanimous men will be slow to make a sweeping charge of coward- 
ice against the enlightened members of our university faculties on 
account of their quiescence under the existing conditions. The 
obligation rests on university presidents to lead the governing 
boards to make the needed fundamental arrangements, and to 
encourage suitable development within the faculty jurisdictions.. 

A genuine graduate division comprises the specifically distin- 
guishing activities of a university, and research is the culminat- 
ing characteristic and aim of this crowning sphere. Its proximity 
and partial merging with undergraduate divisions, wisely admin- 
istered, detracts naught from its own opportunities and affords 
beneficent inspiration to the younger students.* All potential** 
universities should immediately endeavor to set their houses in 
order for this vital and paramount part of the work and functions- 



*See pp. 280- ; 283-287; 299; 407-408; etc. 

**The duty of many institutions to cease from deceptive pretensions by 
making their names and administrations fit their condtion and thus be- 
come useful colleges instead of being counterfeit universities, need not be 
discussed again in this connection: see pp. 59-61; 184-. 



RESEARCH 431 

of higher education, and should henceforth live up to opportu- 
nities that have been more or less neglected or abused. Among 
such universities (with emphasis on "potential") all our state 
universities are to be included. Most of them are erring griev- 
ously, but for all of them the nature of their foundation points 
to a possibility of full development. By full development I mean 
that all work undertaken shall have the aims, and its results have 
the characteristic qualities of genuine scholarship, — not that every 
possible line of work should be prosecuted. Graduate courses best 
grow up in established departments. Graduate divisions, espe- 
cially, should never add new fields for the purpose of competitive 
advertising.* In the case of universities in one geographical sec- 
tion, deliberate co-operation should take the place of reckless 
rivalries. The resources of one faculty might properly make its 
university a center for the most advanced research in mathematics, 
another for chemistry or cla.ssical philology or economics, as may 
be to the interests of post-graduate students. Some subjects 
(e. g., oriental languages, astronomy, forestry, architecture, spe- 
cial branches of engineering, etc.), might be confined entirely to 
one of a group of universities. The saving of wasted money is 
practically im.portant and is a moral obligation; but sound policies 
in these regards would bring still greater benefits and meet still 
higher obligations. 

The usual excuses of administrators for the dearth of productive 
scholarship in their universities are: (a) lack of funds, and con- 
sequently, (b) a faculty overburdened by the teaching of under- 
graduates. It is true in most cases that the funds as adminis- 
tered are insufficient, and generally faculties are overburdened by 
multiplied and m.ulti-sectionized undergraduate courses, — these 
are proximate causes. But the originating effective causes are 
so far and so essentially different, that, if other conditions re- 



*See page 192. 



432 RESEARCH 

mained unchanged, money might be supplied ad lihitum and facul- 
ties doubled in numbers, without ameliorating the character or 
the qualit}^ or the spirit of the work performed. In cases where 
wrong organization and maladministration have combined to de- 
base and confuse all activities, the present evil state might be 
aggravated bv immediate increase of resources. 

Let us face the whole truth steadily: It is true that our uni- 
versities could, conceivably, spend Avisely and efficiently on their 
graduate divisions more than their entire present incomes; but 
it is also true that they are already spending more per capita than 
any other universities in the world, while we cannot truly claim 
more than a third-rate place in productive scholarship. Would it 
not be well to find out the cause of this condition before demand- 
ing more money to spend in the present ways? 

In an address before the Outlook Club of the University c-f 
Iowa (February, 1914), on "The Predicament of Scholarship in 
America and One Solution," Dr. F. C. Brown, despairing of our 
universities, advocates separate research institutions, especially for 
his own science of physics: 

"Only the uninformed are in the habit of designating the mere diffu- 
sion of knowledge as scholarship. . . . Any nation that believes only 
in the diffusion of knowledge is on the road to decay. ... I believe 
for any nation that has any hope of perpetual existence that the scholars 
are the most essential of any class of society. . . . And what is the 
predicament of scholarship in America? Simply this: the institutions 
that have attempted to foster scholarship have not lived up to their op- 
portunities. . . . True enough, our universities have sufficient resources 
to properly foster the work of a physical institute, and there is an abund- 
ant supply of men forthcoming. . . . But the difficulty with our uni- 
versities is one that arises from mixed ideals, particularly in our state 
universities. ... A university wants scholars, but it wants a large 
number of students first. It wants more students in order to convince 
the people of its greatness, so that it may get more money, so that it 
may establish more departments, and so get more students, and so on. 



RESEARCH 433 

. . . Energy and resources that might be directed toward scholarship 
are scattered in every direction. . . . The ideal in practice is not how 
great scholarship, but how thin can it be spread. In other words, there 
is in our scholarship a strong tendency toward democracy gone mad . 

. . . If we will admit that our administrative officers generally have 
no vision of the value of scholarship to the future of society, we can pro- 
ceed with our argument. . . . 

"What has been the result of the material growth of our universities 
on the development of physical science in this country? We have lab- 
oratories of marble and cases filled with apparatus, and hordes of stu- 
dents, and a wonderful machine-like system to care for these students. 
But the efforts and resources adapted to scholarly purposes are not at 
all in proportion to merit. . . . The demand is for men who will 
take care of these hordes of students^ men who will lead these students 
by the hand and feed them with a spoon. . . . It is no doubt true 
that in some instances scholarship is not developed in physics because the 
members of the department staff are beyond hope of becoming scholars 
and they either have no knowledge of what tends to develop scholarship 
or are afraid that some individual might develop who would be a greater 
man than those on the ground floor. But this latter is pure hypothesis. 
What is needed is a higher light on American soil. . . . Productive 
scholarship is the flower of our educational work and that individual 
who shows tendencies to bloom should be allowed the every ounce of his 
energy to apply in this direction." 

Dr. Brown has stated fairly enough ^'the predicament of scholar- 
ship^' under the tendencies which we are striving to check and 
change, but in my judgment separate research institutions would 
not be a "solution," Suitably endowed institutions for research 
have their proper sphere (especially for large problems extending 
beyond individual lifetime) and are to be highly appreciated, but 
they could never take the place or fulfill the function of pro- 
ductive scholarship in universities. The principle applied to the 
science of medicine by Dr. Victor C. Yaughan in his recent presi- 
dential address to the American Medical Association applies to 
all sciences and to scholarship in general: 

"I have no sympathy with the idea that medical research should be 
largely relegated to special non-teaching institutions. These have their 



434 RESEARCH 

function and we rejoice in their foundation and support, but the man 
who is devoid of the spirit of scientific investigation has no place in 
medicine as student, practitioner, or teacher, and the most elaborate medi- 
cal training without opportunity for scientific observation is barren. Be- 
sides, opportunity for medical discovery should be widely distributed. 

. . The workers must be many, all must be free to pursue knowledge 
in their own way, and all must be compelled to prove their claims. . . . 

"Each good medical school is doing more or less of research which is 
not confined to laboratory investigators, but is fast finding its way inta 
the hospitals. Indeed, some of our clinical men are now making most 
valuable contributions. Every medical man should have much of the spirit 
of research." 

There should be no need to repeat at this point the arguments 
that have been presented in different connections* indicating the 
advantages of a wide and intimate union of investigation and 
teaching. The advantages accme to all interests. Certainty sci- 
ence has not suffered in Germany from the fact that her leading 
scholars have been the actual daily teachers of her nniversity stu- 
dents; and what it means for a people to have its strongest youth 
come into intellectual contact, fact to face, with its leading think- 
ers, needs no argument. Those most competent to speak from 
experience testify that the scholars find their vigor prolonged and 
their total productiveness not diminished by their teaching. 
Surely it fits the nature of things that those who are advancing 
knowledge should instruct t.he young aspirants to scholarship. 
Dr. Brown goes too far, in my judgment, when he says that every 
one capable of research should apply "every ounce of his energy 
in this direction.'' There is no direction in which any man 
should permanently apply every ounce of his energy. Such a 
course defeats its purpose. American scholars, however, could 
hardly be censured were they to revolt against the spirit in which 
they have been abused and wasted in many of our universities; 



See pp. 280- ; 283-287; 299; 301-303; etc. 



PECUNIARY RESOURCES 435 

even the indictment, made by some of them, that the American 
university is "a parasite on the schohirly impulse instead of a 
stimulus to if* is not without its lamentable foundations. 

Limitations of pecuniary resources never. justify abandoning the 
essential siDirit of university work and life; they should merely 
limit the number of the special fields cultivated. It is not neces- 
sary that all fields be cultivated by every university; but it is 
essential that the work in every field that is entered be honestly 
and worthily perforined. Maladministration (springing mainly 
from malorganization) is responsible for the present evil pre- 
dicament — especially the plight into which the majority of state 
universities have fallen. The spectacle is before us in tjrpical 
cases of such a multiplication and needless sectionizing of courses 
that, with an average of less than a dozen students to each mem- 
ber of the teaching staff,** the schedules cause the teachers to be 
"overwhelmed with undergraduate instruction^' and allow no time 
for proper graduate courses or scholarly work. Yet the admin- 
istrative officers who have framed or compelled the making of such 
schedules, and whose policies have replenished the faculties with 
cheap and ill qualified members, see no fault in themselves and 
are crA'ing aloud that all that is needed is more money. It is not 
presumptuous to say that I could submit to any large university 
suffering from the conditions referred to, a budget corresponding 
with proposed changes in the administration of the curriculum, 
which, if adopted, would forthwith release large sums for the 
graduate division and research, and would relieve the faculty of 
all overwhelming assignments. If, simultaneously, sound policies 
for recruiting the faculty with competent men as rapidly as jus- 



*Page 117. 

**See page 6 of '"A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universi- 
ties and Agricultural Colleges in Fourteen States," by Arthur Lefevre, 
issued (1912) by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of 
Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education, Austin, Texas. 



436 PECUNIARY RESOURCES 

tice and good faith permitted, were adopted, the whole spirit and 
qnality of the institution's work would soon render an infinitely 
enhanced service to the commonwealth and to all the proper ob- 
jects of a nniversity. The principles and many particulars for 
such amendments are spread throughout this book. 

(1) Aside from need for money, the large (and nearly always 
concealed) expenditures for advertising should be reduced as indi- 
cated in Chapter III. This alone in some cases might supply al- 
most as much money as the graduate division would know how to 
spend immediately. (2) Aside from the need of money, courses 
that have been instituted only for advertising purposes should gen- 
erally be dropped. Some such courses, as conducted, have been 
intrinsically as fraudulent as paper soles for shoes or any other 
trick of commercial ioia^ery. Sometimes nominally proper courses 
are no better; but such require strengtheaing, not abolishment. 
(3) Some superfluous courses have usually crept into the sched- 
ules ; and where there is need of funds for essential work, a con- 
siderable number of courses not vicious in themselves should be 
suspended.* After some experience under more wholesome con- 
ditions, expansions would be made again more wisely with the 
increased resources that would come as the reward of better 
service. Restoration of confidence and appreciation might come 
slowly — for the people are becoming sorely perplexed, but it would 
come and ample funds with it. (4) The number of sections in 
the undergraduate courses which are not laboratory courses could 
be greatly reduced without loss and with many incidental benefits. 
(5) All "scholarships"' paid from general revenue should be 
abolished. It is certain that evil is mixed with the good claimed 
for these money gifts; but 1 believe the evil inheres almost en- 
tirely in the scholarships paid by the institution, as distinguished 
from those founded by specific donation or bequest. A student 



'^See page 46. 



PECUNI.\RY RESOURCES 437 

loan fund (after the original investment) would be self-sustain- 
ing, far more helpful, free from the inequities incident to the 
awarding of paid scholarships, and clear from the moral objec- 
tions to giving and to receiving the gifts out of public funds.* 
The scholarships commonly offered to the honor graduates of all 
affiliated high schools involving merely the remittance of some 
small matriculation fee, are not here referred to; they are legiti- 
mate and may be helpful to the high schools, of some advantage 
to the university, and not injurious to the recipients. Nor is 
there objection to unsolicited private endowments for special schol- 
arships; in particular, memorial scholarships and fellowships seem 
to project their gracious and benign causes into good effects. But 
the appropriations for paid scholarships by state universities** 
which at the same time complain that their resources are not 
sufficient for the proper performance of their work, constitute one 
of countless exposures of the belief nursed by their administrators 
that the public regards only the number of students and will pay 
for nothing else. The day for a schocking awakening for the op- 
portunists who have administered universities under this belief 
appears to me to be approaching. 

Space is lacking for more details; various other economies have 
been suggested to an attentive reader. The money that could be 
saved in the ways mentioned in the preceding paragi'aph would 
suffice to relieve the faculty from excessive routine teaching, make 
some addition to all salaries that ought to be raised, and add 
equipment for research — not enough, but more than the dejected 
departments have ever yet dared to hope for. This would do 



*Aii extract from a report by the Foundation for the Advancement of 
Teaching given in a previous chapter (see especially page 190) indi- 
cates the extent of this abuse and reveals something of its inner motives 
and eflfects. 

**0r the "free" scholarships in non-state institutions dependent upon 
charges for tuition. Cf. p. 190. 



438 BENEFICIAL RETRENCHMENTS 

for a beginning. Substantial increase of income would follow 
improved I'esults. In some cases it would be better to have re- 
sources increased gradually, and the needed expenditures for 
expanding work established in the light of experience with cor- 
rected organization and more skillful administration. 

The beneficial retrenchments I have advised will commend 
themselves to every reader who acknowledges the fundamental 
principles to which this book appeals,* — with one exception. All 
but one are based on universal principles; the exception may be 
complicated with technical questions of fact. Is it true, that: 
^'The number of sections in the undergraduate courses which are 
not laboratory courses could be greatly reduced without loss and 
with many incidental benefits''? The advertisers make a 'catchy' 
announcement when they proclaim that their courses have been 
sectionized so as to allow only some small number in each section 
and that every student is to receive individual instruction in all 
of his studies. What does this really mean? It means that the 
majority of the young students meet only cheap instructors. It 
means in the case of certain courses, which necessarily have a 
vital formative importance for all regular matriculants, down- 
levelins: mechanized teaching — in order to keep the many sections 
of the same course in lockstep uniformity. One who would judge 
the question on its real merits must, also, take into account that 
the majority of young instructors have been turned out under 
the "prizes for alF' theory and practice,*^-' and that their degrees 
may possibly be little more than certificates of attendance. Of 
course, a cheap instructor may be a vastly superior man to some 
full professor, but in a general view only general facts are to be 
considered. Freshmen coming to some state universities from 
good high schools too often find little or no change in subject- 



*See page 83. 
**See pp. 341- ; 420. 



BENEFICIAL RETRENCHMENTS 439 

matter or spirit of instruction, nor in tlie force and scholarship 
of teachers; while those who come from the best schools are often 
subjected to more childish treatment and distinctly less forceful 
inslnictors than during the latter years of their school life. I 
have heard many fathers express indignant disappointment be- 
cause their sons were meeting none of the strong men in the 
faculty, but had gone from manly inspiring teachers in a prepara- 
tory school to be fed with a spoon in a university. The vaunted 
individual attention practically tends to reduce to spoon-feeding 
and scolding. 

Under existing conditions much more than money for the grad- 
uate division would be gained by decreasing the njumber of sec- 
tions in undergraduate courses. The tendency to coddle every- 
body to a ''pass,^" would be resisted as stronger and officially more 
independent inen, teaching large sections, superseded many of the 
precariously placed and sometimes arbitrarily supervised instruc- 
tors with their little sections. Some pedagogical colleagues may 
cry aloud in protest against all this, but, for the time being, the 
less they are heeded on questions of general policy the better. 
There are noble exceptions (may their tribe increase), but few 
of them have yet found themselves or their subject. Their de- 
mands have misled many faculties into injurious concessions. 

An untrammeled faculty of genuine scholars will do good teach- 
ing regardless of any particular system — "preceptorial," small sec- 
tions, large sections, or any other not intrinsicly absurd. The 
important practical matter for the time being is to do away with 
arrangements that are leveling ever}i;hing to the poorest capacities, 
with the result that the weakest get nothing worth mentioning 
and young men of superior power are spoiled or wasted. Proper 
courses of instruction and proper "crediting" will remain practi- 
cally impossible as long as the childish attitudes about "failing" 
are maintained. The degree which it is a disgrace, or a matter 



440 PREPARATIOX FOR GRADUATE WORK 

of discipline, not to take on schedule time, cannot be a distinc- 
tion; it must reduce approximately to a certificate of tolerated 
attendance, and the standard of toleration must tend to sink in- 
definitely. 

The incessant complaint by nniversities abont poor preparation 
for college entrance is abstractly just; but their own preparation 
for their graduate divisions is much more at fault and a much 
more serious matter. Also, the best way to amend the former is 
to correct the latter, because few students would continue in un- 
desirable attendance on instruction really beyond their grasp, and 
tne secondary schools would quicldy strive to meet intrinsic re- 
quirements for successful attendance — without which no adventi- 
tious requirements for entrance can be effective.* If a university 
course is conducted on. the theory that evc'ry obedient student 
rightly prepared for entrance ought to win credit for it m his 
first attempt, the practical consequence is the undergraduate de- 
gree for all who will attend diligently: and, since no institution 
can discount its own solemn titles, the graduate division and the 
Ph. D. degree are dragged down to abortive work and meaning- 
less distinction. 

Here may be seen the real nature and cause of the opinion, now 
spreading among American scientists, that research needs to be 
divorced from teaching. It is the application of the ^^prizes for 
all"' theory to the baccalaureate degree that makes subsequent 
teaching bootless for the taught, and so onerous for the teacher 



^President R. J. Aley of the University of Maine testified in 1911: 
"Many students entered the University conditioned because of their fail- 
ure to offer enough language, science, mathematics, or history. One of 
the singular things noted in studying the college career of these students 
is that there is no appreciable difference in college work between the stu- 
dents who enter regularly and those who enter conditioned. If there is 
any difiference, it is in favor of the conditioned student, because, in ad- 
dition to his regular work, he must make up the conditions imposed upon 
him at entrance." 



SCHOLARSHIP 441 

that time and spirit for genuine research are lacking. The ex- 
hausting labor of coaching mediocre and ill-prepared minds to 
make some sort of showing in so-called original research for the 
Ph. D. degree, wastes the time of men capable of advanced re- 
search and of inspiring to full development fit aspirants to scholar- 
ship: and this enforcement of low standards saps the integrity of 
all who participate in it, because thereby science and scholarship 
are betrayed in a house of false friends. No need for divorcing 
teaching and research would be felt, if university administration 
ceased from reckless bidding for numbers, particularly in grad- 
uate divisions, and from pushing misguided young men into under- 
takings for which they are not properly prepared, or are, perhaps, 
congenitally incompetent. A university should indeed be '^dem- 
ocratic'^ in the sense that from its well-springs drink alike, in 
perfect equality of manhood, rich and poor, high-born and lowly; 
but its highest-placed fountains, if reached at all, are in the very 
nature of the necessan^ ascent accessible only by an aristocracy 
of nature and discipline. To attain scholarship one need not be 
genius-crowned, but he must be power-shod by innate endowment 
and adequate discipline. There are no more deadly foes of edu- 
cation and of science — and therefore of the whole body politic — 
than those who prate about university degrees '^for every American 
boy and girl." It is of vital importance for the success of any 
democratic regime that these truths be recognized. A democratic 
society would be doomed to an on-coming downfall if it were to 
become blind to its need for true universities and regarded them 
as luxuries for a pampered few. Only a few can be productive 
scholars, as oiily a few can be creative musicians; but the debt 
of everylodij to both is plain to all except hopelessly envious souls. 
How much does society owe to those who have helped to enfran- 
chise thought and dispel superstition? Does the passenger on the 
"ocean greyhound" realize his indebtedness to the men of science 



442 SCHOLARSHIP 

through whose secluded work the design of the great machine be- 
came possible, and to the astronomers whose Xautical Almanac en- 
ables it to steer across trackless seas? What were the "toys of the 
laboratory^^ worth, which the inventors of electrical apparatus, 
like Edison, Jiave applied to such universal services? (England 
paid Farady less than $2500 a year.) Were the fees of a privat 
docent too much to pay for knowledge of Hertzian vibrations, and 
our wireless stations? AYho enjoys the millions by which agri- 
culture profits every year from the contributions of even one such 
chemist as Liebig? Had Pasteur never been, how much would 
the people pay to stop the pestilences he has prevented? And so 
with all the scholars who carry on and on the Empire of Eeason. 
They care not that their names are seldom known beyond the 
circle of fellowworkers,* but they do demand that their workshop 
be not treated from within as if it were a paradise for fools, nor 
censored from without as if seekers after truth should report of 
their findings only things harmonious with popular convictions. 
The following extracts from a weighty report adopted by the 
Graduate School of Cornell University in 1910, strongly corrob- 
orate the counsel submitted in this section. No mxre competent 
authority could be cited. (Most of the italics are mine.) 

"It must not be forgotten that an increase in the number of under- 
graduates brings with it an additional burden of administrative work, 
and that this burden, together with the responsibility of planning the 
work of instruction so as to handle such large numbers, must fall upon 
the permanent members of the staff. Unless the permanent staff is in- 
creased in the same ra-tio as the lahole teaching staff, the time of the mem- 
ters of our Faculty will be increasingly occupied by administrative 
routinee, and advanced work and research must necessarily suffer," 

"It is a relatively simple matter for a teacher to di'op his advanced work 



*Probably none but biologists know the names of the men for whom 
the world had to wait before the Panama Canal could be constructed with- 
out the prohibitive cost of life and treasure which had caused it to be 
abandoned. 



ADVANCED INSTRUCTION" 443 

in order to give instruction to elementary classes. But it is a different 
thing for a man whose time has been occupied by the routine of admin- 
istration and elementary work to change suddenly to graduate instruction 
and the direction of research. Again, from the standpoint of a graduate 
student, the attractiveness of a university is determined either by the ex- 
cellence of its facilities for experimental work, or by the standing of the 
members of its faculty as investigators and progressive scholars. Unless 
our Faculty contains men eminent in their fields of knowledge and pre- 
pared to give graduate students the special training and the inspiration 
that they seek, and unless the University possesses the material equip- 
ment that is required, graduate students will not come to us. Provision 
for graduate students must be made years in advance, and not after the 
need of it has been shown by the returns from the Registrar's office." 

"One of the most effective means of strengthening the Graduate School, 
and at the same time of maintaining a high standard of undergraduate 
teaching, is for the members of this Faculty to use their influence, both 
individually and as a body, to encourage scholarly work among all mem- 
bers of the instructing staff. Let it be understood that each member of 
our staff is expected to contribute in some way to the advancement of 
knowledge, and not merely to teach what he has received from others. If 
there are any who are overburdened with routine teaching, the load should 
be lightened to such an extent as to make research possible." 

"It seems clear, therefore, that if the University is to achieve its high- 
est purpose it must first of all demand of all its teachers those charac- 
teristics which are recognized as essential to membership in this Faculty; 
and having done so, it should assist in maintaining their activity and 
enthusiasm by encouraging all teachers, young and old, to contribute to 
progress in their fields of knowledge by scholarly work and investigation. 
Those who are sufficiently mature should further be given the opportun- 
ity of taking part in the direction of graduate work." 

"It is important for the interests of the Graduate School and of the 
University as a whole that the work of teaching be so distributed that 
all memhers of the instructing staff may have a reasonable amount of 
time for scholarly work and research. And it is recommended that all 
members of this Faculty use their influence, both collectively and indi- 
vidually, to encourage such work b}^ all members of the teaching staff." 

"So far as practicable each member of the staff should be givcik the op- 
portunity of taking part in advanced instruction as well as m elementary 



444 EXTENSION DIVISION 

"Recommendation for appointment and promotion should be contingent 
upon the possession of ability and activity in scholarly work and investi- 
gation, and not merely upon success in teaching." 

"May it not be that we can do more good for the cause of education by 
directing our efforts toward making Cornell the best university in the 
country, rather than the lergest?" 

Extension Division. 

Space permits only very brief comment upon the latest and most 
noised abroad sphere of imiversity activities — the Extension Divi- 
sion. Abstractly nothing but good is to be said of the idea. Per- 
sonally, I feel a greater intellectual debt of gratitude to the first 
formal university-extension lecturer in America, than to any other 
teacher. It was my privilege to hear many lectures and various 
courses of lectures delivered in Johns Hopkins University and the 
Peabody Institute of Baltimore by Richard G. Moulton, then Cam- 
bridge University Extension Lecturer in Literature. It was dur- 
ing several of the years 1878-1882, while I was attending the 
Baltimore City College where I was instructed by many able 
scholars, two or three of whom were as strong and inspiring as 
any university professors I have met either as student or col- 
league in later years; but I learned more and more vitally and 
more lastingly from Professor Moulton's lectures on Hebrew, 
Greek, and English literature than from any other one source 
either in or out of a university. The great English university 
extended to America one of her professors, and she gave of her 
best. But neither I nor any of my young comrades who seized 
the opportunity ever thought of such a thing as ^^credit" in our 
college for those extra courses.* 

Extension lectures by university professors may be of great 
service to any community — and will be, if no "credits" are offered 
for them. It must be understood that such lectures are not a sub- 



*Cf. pp. 2*28; 344; 349-350; 404. 



EXTENSION DIVISION 445 

stitute for regular courses in connection with university libraries 
and laboratories and associations. 

Correspondence courses may render valuable and needed service 
if they are not conceived as an equivalent substitute for work in 
college. Under some conditions crediting for degrees may be jus- 
tifiable, but that way danger lies and it has led to many abuses. 

President Kane has said: 

"The chief danger in the correspondence school is the impression given 
out that it may be made to serve as a substitute for a real school. It 
is the same with the Chautauquas with their reading circle courses. They 
may do considerable good, if we estimate them at what they really are, 
and are harmful in case they are mistaken for regular courses. In this 
same class we might speak of the 'short courses' given in universities 
or regular schools. . . . We have to take unusual care to make it 
understood what the course is, and especially what it is not." 

With vigilant restraint against abuses, correspondence courses 
may develop wholesomely, provided no course is offered until it 
can be given worthily, and that resources for each extension are 
available without sapping the strength of other work. President 
Van Hise gave a wise warning some years ago out of his experi- 
ence in AVisconsin: 

"By extension courses, lectures, popular scientific literature, etc., the 
popular interest and sympathy may be enlisted. But how far elementary 
and secondary education shall be dominated by technical, industrial, and 
agricultural tendencies is of concern to the universities, as well as the 
danger that the highest ideals of the universities themselves may be lost 
in the attempt to follow popular demand. The universities should be with 
the people but at the head." 

Extension Divisions are peculiarly liable to exploitation by the 
do-everything-reach-ever3^body ecstac}^ — or demagogy, as the case 
may be. The solemn silliness of the assertions and demands 
made by some zealots in and without the universities,* can hardly 



*When such extreme enthusiasts are members of a university faculty 
and their outcries do not move it, they are disposed to agitate in the 



446 ATHLETICS 

be imagined by persons not familiar with the discussions. The 
general attitude is illustrated by the impassioned assertion — if cor- 
rectly reported in reliable journals — of a man experienced in uni- 
versity positions, and of high standing in Washington (officially 
and as an expert), that the National University which he was 
advocating ^'should reach ninety per cent of the people within 
the time of this generation." A school girl might be chided for 
such intemperate thought and speech. And aside from the exag- 
geration,* any such demand upon or conception of a university 
is positively vicious. 

At.hUtics. 

It appears ahnost absurd that college athletics should have 
become a Problem. University administration, it would seem, 
need be concerned with nothing more than providing for the gen- 



legislatures — being as ignorant of ethical proprieties as of other profes- 
sional obligations. They are commonly ready to write a law off-hand on 
almost any subject. Some of them will write a bill for the legislative 
committee of a woman's club while its members wait to carry the docu- 
ment away with them. It has been necessary in probably more than one 
instance to call a special session of a legislature quickly to repeal a law 
drafted by alleged university experts. Many other laws so drafted re- 
main dead letters on account of absurd or impossible provisions : for in- 
stance, in one such it is ordained under fierce penalties that every public 
school house costing four hundred dollars or over shall be equipped with 
automatic systems of temperature-control and ventilation! 

■'•All the churches of every denomination combined do not reach ninety 
per cent of the people. 

It cannot be pled that "reach" might have been used in the nugatory 
sense in which every event may be metaphysically said to affect all things 
presently existing and all future being; for that attenuated meaning of 
"reach" leaves no meaning at all in "ninety per cent." — it would be the 
100 per cent of this people plus infinitely more. It may be said that 
a poet's thought, a scientist's discovery, or a university or a mother 
who contributes to the nurture of a strong good man, benefits the whole 
world and all that is within it; but the truth of that ultimate concept 
nowise relieves the folly of saying that chautauqua platforms for a woman 
or extension devices of a university would reach ninety per cent of the 
people. 



ATHLETICS 447 

eral body of students outdoor space for games, and rooms and 
equipment and competent directors for beneficial gymnastics. 
Games between home teams would be the ordinary sport, match 
games with the best teams of neighboring colleges would be played 
on holidays as convenient, and, it might be supposed, occasionally 
a journey to meet some distant challenge would be made. And 
such would have been the case if the matter had been left in its 
natural sphere. But advertisinsf geniuses among college admin- 
istrators seized upon athletics; an abnormal bent in the college 
spirit of student bodies was induced and fostered into a tradition; 
and lo ! the Problem of College Athletics. Traditions die slowly; 
but the troubles with athletics would subside if administrative 
officials were cured of the itch for numbers. Until that good day 
comes, the extravagances of college athletics should be endured 
philosophically as one of the minor concomitants of a radical 
disorder. 

The following comment by Professor C. H. Grandgent expresses 
only a partial view, but it suggests some profitable reflections : 

"A very serious college paper publishes an article by an evidently earn- 
est young man who maintains that scholarship is essentially narrow and 
selfish; the really generous student is he who works, not for the culti- 
vation of his own mind, but for the glory of his college.. As if a college 
could derive glory from anything but the fulfilment of its proper mis- 
sion, the cultivation of the individual minds entrusted to it! The altru- 
istic tone assumed by devotees of college amusements is peculiarly irritat- 
ing. I am willing that children should make mud pies: it is their nature 
to. But when they begin to declare that they are making mud pies, not 
for their own delectation, but for the embellishment of their city, it is 
time they were sent on errands for their mothers," 

A man at play m.ay be at his best or at his worst. The m.ore 
natural the play — that is the less of ulterior purpose, the more 
the enjoyment and the better the effects. Athletic sports must be 
wholesome in spirit to be profitable to the body. Only when fair- 



448 A SOUND MIND 

ness. courage, and magnanimity are exercised by a man in his 
sport is he really cheered and strengthened by it. If followed in 
the spirit of clean sport, it would probably be well for every man, 
yoimg or old, to have some outdoor ])lay, some sporting interest. 

In this connection I offer one suggestion directly to students, 
if I m.ay be permitted a second time* in this book to digress in 
that way from the subjects of organization and administration. 

I think it was Robert Louis Stevenson who has said: "Man- 
kind li\es not by bread alone, but also by catch-phrases.'' There 
are miaiiy catch-phrases whose masked or perverted meanings work 
infinite mischief. They are the unjust stewards of the precepts 
of wisdom. One of them — perhaps more dinned in the ears of 
college students than any other — is, mens sana in corpore sano, 
which is commonly perverted to mean that, the way to have a 
healthy mind is to have a healthy body. All possible changes are 
rung on this theme, and the false emphasis in each makes them 
all harmful lies. Bodily health is, indeed, of great value, and a 
healthy mind in a healthy body is the perfect estate. Of course, 
also, soundness of the innermost citadel of the vital organism is 
essential for the sane existence of mind in connection with body. 
But for the matters commonly referred to, the health of the mind 
does not depend on the health of the body; and, although the 
latter is valuable, the former is of incomparably greater value. 
To mention them as co-ordinate is to sink to depths of folly. 
Verily, he that seeketh his life in such ways shall lose it. It is 
evident that men having healthy bodies are frequently unwise or 
corrupt; that men strong as bullocks may be weak-willed and 
cowardly; that men with perfect digestion and circulation may 
be scoundrels. The frequency of healthy minds — brave, strong, 
generous, wise spirits — in bodies suffering from bacterial invasions 



*Page 420. 



A SOUND MIND 449 

and other ills that flesh is lieir to, is equally evident. Yet the 
catch-phrase lias done its work. Unmanly fear of death and of 
sickness is more prevalent than it has ever been hitherto. Another 
consequence is the present contempt for old age.* Old age brings 
infirmities, and is naturally despised by those who suppose that 
a sound body is the condition for soundness of mind.** Prepos- 
terous notions about eugenics are also spreading, — Avhich both deny 
the most significant discoveries of genetics and confound all values 
for the true human eu-gemcs. Many discussions of the subject 
would be reasonable only if men were bred for the shambles to 
be eat-en. I have known men no taller than Julius Caesar, or 
even as short as Napoleon I, who have stood bravely before dan- 
gers that would have made some longer legs smite together at 



*I know that Montesquieu in his Spirit of Laws shows how disrespect 
for old age follows the specific "corruption" of democracy which takes 
place when every citizen would be on a level with those chosen to com- 
mand and the people want to manage everything directly — to legislate 
for the Senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges. 
He is doubtless correct, but each influence has reinforced the other, and 
each grows by what it feeds on. His description of the characteristic 
effects of the specific corruption peculiar for democratic institutions, and 
therefore to be especially guarded against, may sound to us like prophecy, 
but it was calm analysis : 

"The people are desirous of exercising the functions of the magistrates, 
who cease to be revered. The deliberations of the Senate are slighted; 
all respect is then laid aside for the Senators, and consequently for old 
age [italics mine]. If there is no respect for old age, there will be none 
presently for parents; deference to husbands will likewise be thrown off, 
and submission to masters. This license will soon become general, and 
the trouble of command be as fatiguing as that of obedience. Wives, 
children, servants will shake off all subjection. No longer will there be 
any such thing as manners, order, or virtue." 

**A young U. S. Senator a few months ago assured an audience that 
men over fifty are no longer of any use in public affairs, and the Vice 
President of the United States in an address delivered a few days ago 
to the students of Wabash College declared, with implied approval and 
congratulations to the j'^oung if correctly reported: "The old man is be- 
ing shoved off the stage everywhere. Failing physical vision is assumed 
to mark a like diminution of intellectual sight." 



450 A SOUND MIND 

the knees. Comeliness and bodily health should be conserved and 
disease resisted by all sane methods; but for the most important 
issues of human life, the true eugenics would deem the child of 
a consumptive better born and more fortunately en\droned than 
the child of a fanatic. It is better to have a cancer in the soma 
than cruelty in the soul. 

It is important for life wisdom to learn at the outset and very 
clearly, that a man may live a strong life, and a happy one, in 
spite of a frail body and much sickness. I take it that all of us 
have had opportunity to see, had we eyes to see, men with impaired 
physical strength quietly bearing heavy burdens that would have 
broken the nerve and spirit of many men in perfect health, — 
others enduring bodily pain and weakness, seldom allowed to mar 
cheerfulness or interrupt industry, which would almost any day 
have sent the majority of stouter men complainingly to bed. 

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the will which says to them hold on, 
— You'll be a man, my son," 

Seek and preserve health and grace and strength of body, but 
seek also, and hy different paths, a healthy mind filled with the 
treasure of wholesome principles, strong in will power and loyal 
affection and the spirit of helpfulness. Cast not pearls l^efore 
swine nor help fools to power, and restrain or punish the out- 
rageous; but let manly strength and succor flow from you to 
others, sustaining and comforting as far as your line can reach, 
according to the need your kindly eyes have seen. Live a life 
that would be a valiant and profitable one, though terminated at 
any stage; for strength of life lies not in length of days: "Wis- 
dom, is gray hairs unto men, and an unspotted life is ripe old age.'' 



DORMITORIES AND FRATERNITIES 451 

Dormitories and Fraternities. 

The portion of time that a university student spends, or ought 
to spend, in his substitute for a home (at study table, in social 
intercourse, at meals, bathing and dressing, and in bed) evidently 
makes the conditions for that large part of student life and work 
abundantly important. Of course, it does not follow, in reason, 
that a university ought to take charge of a matter simply because 
it is of great importance; but in this case there will be no dis- 
pute between more discriminating administrators and those whose 
policies or consciences impel them to attempt official direction and 
control in every sphere. 

Unless the general explanation offered in this book be accepted, 
I do not see how it can be explained why many universities have 
not set their own houses in better order before extending to teach 
"all the people" cooking and house sanitation and decoration and 
other arts of domesticity, neglected for the thousands of young 
men and women so earnestly summoned to their classic halls. 
The public halls are generally ample and sometimes gorgeous, but 
most students in state universities and colleges* "room" in the 
domiciles of needy citizens, or in crowded boarding houses, or in 
the cells of big barracks. This condition is not always as terrible 
as it appears to some critics; but it is not as it should be, and 
few universities lack resources to improve it. It would be well 
to abate the hubbub about many pretentious "movements" for 
student-welfare, and quietly supply good arrangements (equal to 
the demand) for eating and bathing and sleeping, and for study 
and comradeship and hospitality. Well planned college homes 



*''The state colleges and universities contain more than half of all the 
students and their enrollment is increasing at about twice the rate of 
that of the private institutions. . . . [They] have provided practically 
no dormitories, but have relegated their students to the execrable board- 
ing houses of a typical college town."--Birdseye's The Reorganization of 
Our Colleges, 1909. 



452 WELL PLANNED HOMES 

would contribute more* to the welfare, uplift, and social develop- 
ment of the student body than all the exhortations about those 
^'causes*' ever vented. 

Well planned colles^e homes, in my judgment, will be houses 
accomm.odating groups of less than thirty if meals are served in 
the home, or groups not much larger even if meals be provided in 
separate commons. Each house will have rooms at diiferent prices, 
according to size and desirability and as occupied singly or by 
room-mates. The groups will be, as far as practicable, voluntary, 
under regulations requiring a minimum of experienced students. 
Voluntary grouping would cause no difficulties, if registration for 
each house were held open for a joint application (not exceeding 
its quota, and which might be added to within the time limit) 
until, say, one week before the opening of the session. After that 
date the registrar would simply assign ungrouped applicants to 
unoccupied rooms. 

The idea of a big dormitory exclusively for freshmen, first enter- 
tained by the new administration of Harvard University, appears 
to me to be totally mistaken. "It is clear to everyone," said Presi- 
dent "Wilson, speaking of the proposed residential Quads at Prince- 
ton, "that the life of the university can be best regulated and 
developed only wlien the mider classmen are in constant asso- 
ciation luith upper classmen, upon such terms as to he formed 
and guided hy them." Italics are mine.) Alas ! there is noth- 



*This college home life must be affirmatively ennobling and uplifting 
or it will- be quite the contrary. It must be constantly affected by strong 
and usually older characters, whose influence must be exerted, silently but 
surely, within itself. It must have a power for good, inherent in itself, 
and must not expect to find any true substitute for this in some mystic 
influences that the college, or Y. M. C. A., or any other extrinsic agency, 
institutional in its nature, can exercise from without. Our tendency is 
to look to institutions and organizations to do things which can be ac- 
complished only by ourselves. These outside agencies are artificial creat- 
ures which may stimulate and inspire, but which can never supplant the 
normal home force." — C. E. Birdseye, 



COLLEGE HOME LIFE 453 

ing — not even the most immutable moral axiom — that "is clear to 
everyone"; but some things ought to be clear to everybody, and 
President Wilson's statement on this point is one of them. 

Some of Mr. Birdseye^s disquisitions on professional or technical 
points miss their mark, as I understand those matters; but the 
principles on which he bases his chapters on College Home Life 
and College Fraternities are thoroughly sound. For example : 

"Neither the college nor the faculty as a body, especially in the large 
universities, should be expected to control directly the college home lives 
of the students, for they can never take the place of an inherent force 
working from within — in the absence of which there can be no true home» 
But this force must be permanent — not shifting from year to year. It 
must have real authority — even if it uses only moral suasion. It must 
rule by the consent of the governed and because they appreciate that it 
works for their best good. It must have power away from the home as 
well as within its walls — and follow the student even to the strange city. 
. . . Whether it be good, bad, or indifferent, there is such a moral 
force at work in every college home. Except as this force is ennobled 
we cannot hope for permanent religious or moral improvement among 
our students; and it must be ennobled by human example and sympathy 
and not by institutional ordinance. . . . 

"The college home life was . . . most important in our forefathers' 
eyes, for they saw that only through it could they prepare the good 
ground for the good seed and make good citizens. . . . The fore- 
fathers were right in believing that this goodness of the ground could be 
secured only through the direct and intimate touch of the older man 
upon the younger. But how, in our large institutions and under modern 
condtions, are we to bring about a close touch between the younger and 
older men which shall constantly unlift the younger men in their college 
family lives ? Is there any agency through which this is being or can be 
done? Or anything to indicate that up to the present time only one 
such agency has been developed in a large way? If, under modern condi- 
tions, there has been any distinct and widespread growth and development 
of the college home, we should study it most carefully and with an open 
mind . . . and use it as a model for building up other helpful homes 
which shall embrace every student." 



454 THE COLLEGE FRATERNITY 

The one agency referred to is the college fraternity. 

"We continue to regard the fraternities as mere secret societies, and 
hence to give undue significance to their secret featurs, failing to realize 
how much more important are their home features . . . 

"Since the older private institutions have come^, more and more, to de- 
pend upon the fraternities for housing space, and merely get along with 
patching up their barnlike dormitories, and [most of] the state universi- 
ties have avowedly pursued the course of not having any dormitories at 
all, it is not difficult to see why the fraternity home is now the typical 
college home, and in many cases the best type of home in any particular 
college . . . 

"When one speaks favorably of the part which the fraternities have 
played and can play in solving a portion of the college home life prob- 
lem, he is continually met with the suggestion, "But that does not pro- 
vide for the nonfraternity men." This is true and lamentable, but it is 
an arraignment of the colleges and not of the fraternities, and merely 
proves that substantially all the progress so far made toward a wide 
solution of the college home problem has been made by the fraternities 
and not by the colleges. College dormitories, whether with or without 
commons, are usually barracks, and not homes in the true sense, and 
are simply a barracks form of solving the college home life problem. It 
must be conceded, therefore, that the question of homes for the non- 
fraternity men is merely that portion of the institution's own problem 
which the fraternities have not solved for it; and that it is what the 
fraternities have done which has thrown into bold relief this failure of 
the colleges to do anything! . . . 

"Too often the fraternities are the only factors by which at present 
the college course can round out the social and home sides of its training 
of the future citizens. The assistance which the fraternities have ren- 
dered to the college in performing this portion of its duty to the com- 
monwealth must not be overlooked or sneered at. In this regard the ques- 
tion is not as to whether the fraternities have done their part well, or 
as well as the colleges used to do, but rather whether the colleges have 
done anything at all. If, then, the college home conditions have become 
bad it has not been primarily the fault of the fraternities, but rather be- 
cause the institutions have done substantially nothing, and have not even 
given the subject any intelligent study . . . 

"The history of the college failure in recent years in regard to the col- 



THE COLLEGE FRATERNITY 455 

lege home is so largely made up of errors and omissions that if these 
should be excepted there would be little left. Biit surely this failure of 
the colleges gives them no right to find fault with what the fraternities 
have accomplished of their own accord, and often against the opposition 
of the college itself. A friend, who was a nonfraternity man not from 
necessity but out of respect for his father's prejudices, but who thor- 
oughly believes in the fraternities, asks me to suggest 'some home life for 
the nonfraternity man, and some remedy for their helpless and hopeless 
condition, sans parents, faculty care, or any saving grace of upper class 
or alumni supervision.' Probably there are many to whom this language 
seems too strong, but it expresses the thought which I have heard voiced 
many times in colleges where the fraternities are strong. 

'"It is at this point that we may see why the fraternities are cliarged 
with being exclusive and undemocratic. Certainly they do, so far as they 
ean, attempt to train their members in social etiquette and polished man- 
ners, and thus make them men of the world, and round out the home and 
social sides of their characters; but the coilege no longer does anything 
of this kind directly. The advantages thus evidently given by the fra- 
ternities are unjustly laid up against them, instead of being charged to 
their credit and against the colleges themselves, which should at least 
attempt to provide for the nonfraternity men some of the same kind of 
training wliich is given in the homes of the fraternities. This was made 
very clear to me in an earnest conversation with a well-known professor 
who had put himself through a nonfraternity college, but whose younger 
brothers had gone through another college in which they became promi- 
nent members of fraternities. I found that his complaint was based upon 
the fact that the fraternities gave social training in polite accomplish- 
ments to those who needed them least, having previously had them at 
home; but that they did not, nor did the college, give this training to 
the nonfraternity men who were usually most in need of it. But a little 
discussion made the professor admit that this was in fact a potent argu- 
ment in favor of the fraternity and against the college. The former, by 
intelligently and effectively exercising its home-making functions, was not 
preventing the latter from doing the same thing in some manner; but, 
on the contrary, was showing it, very strikingly, how it could be done 
and thus that it needed to be done. . . . This mistaken point of view 
lies at the bottom of many of the complaints against fraternities. They 
are unjustly accused of being undemocratic, aristocratic, and exclusive, 
merely because, in the privacy of well-kept homes, they do well their own 



456 THE FRATERNITY HOME 

home-making work, and thus make clear Alma Mater's failure either to 
round out this side of the characters of the nonfraternity men or to pro- 
vide a substitute to carry on this work, although the nonfraternity men 
undoubtedly need it more than the average fraternity member. The com- 
plaint is an eminently just one, but against the wrong party. Judgment 
should be ordered for the respondents and against the complainants, with 
heavy costs. 

"It is clearly evident, therefore, that the enormous growth of the fra- 
ternity homes has not been fortuitous. The fraternities, in their present 
shape, have grown out of the need for a new form of college family life; 
they have in part supplied such need;, and thereby have directed attention 
to it; but they have not created the need, and^, like other homes, they are 
largely limited, in supplying that need, to the good they can do within 
their own doors and to the example which they can set to those without.. 
In our review of the history of college administrative condtions we shall 
find many proofs of low colege ideals, practice, and methods. . . . 
Our institutions have not understood how the college secret society was 
developing into the college home; nor have they perceived that the fra- 
ternities could solve only a small portion of this home problem, and that 
the college itself must do the rest ... 

"The college family life, like that of any other home, is concealed from: 
the public view and fully known only to members of the family. Other- 
wise it is not a true family life. To be ideal and to give it permanence,, 
the college home should embrace the upper and lower classmen, the grad- 
uate and undergraduate — for all these can be educated and developed 
therein. Our children educate us almost as much as we can educate them. 
The older brother is trained and developed through the responsibility of 
setting an example to and protecting the younger children who look up 
to him as the 'big brother.' An only child is likely to b^ spoiled because 
he lives only to himself. Hence there are true educative conditions in- 
the fraternity home where members of all classes are intimately gathered 
together. . . . 

"A college home to be successful and permanent must be small and 
congenial, because it selects and trains its own members, and has some 
of the separateness and exclusiveness of a home. In two many institu- 
tions the moral tendency of the student life as a whole is distinctly down- 
ward, and any fraternity chapter therein will encounter great difficulties 
which attempts consistently to raise its own life contrary to the drift of 
the college itself, which is merely the resultant of the home life of gen- 



THE COLLEGE FRATERNITY 457 

erations of students. The college homes are so true an index of the gen- 
eral life that if we can know the inner family 15fe of the fraternity homes 
in a college, we can infallibly construct therefrom the dominant moral 
influences that rule the ninety per cent of student life in that institution, 
and thereby determine the true educational results of its other depart- 
ments." 

Such principles as these stand on their own power of appeal ; 
neither argument nor authority could add much for those who are 
acquainted with the facts. For readers who have no personal 
knowledge of the inner life of our colleges and universities^ I add 
the following most competent testimony: 

President Schurman, speaking in 1909 of Cornell, says: 

"^^Tiile the intellectual and scholarly spirit and organization are on 
a high plane, the social life leaves much to be desired. The majority of 
the young men — all except those in fraternities — are scattered in boarding 
and lodging houses throughout the city. The experience of American stu- 
dents seems to show that the fraternity house, accommodating two or 
three dozen students, presents in the matter of size and arrangement an 
ideal for the residential hall ; it is large enough for a community and not 
too large for intimate acquaintance and friendship; it provides studies, 
bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining-room, and commons room." 

If eastern experience be contemned, President Yan Hise has 
borne witness for the leading Avestern state university: 

"One of the strongest arguments in favor of the fraternities is the 
need of social life in which a young man may get social discipline and 
manners — a necessary part of his education." 

Against all this are two sorts of opponents, one envenomed and 
active, the other obstructive without hostility. The latter is exem- 
plified by the president who wrote to Mr. Birdseye: 

"We have a strong feeling in a university town like this, where there 
are 2,300 students in a town of 10,000, that we can maintain the home 
life of students by really disseminating them in homes. We find, how- 
ever, that there is a tendency to boarding houses and distressingly poor 



458 COLLEGE HOMES 

living, hence our movement looking towards the commons with certain 
dormitory privileges. The fraternities are aiding us by having their o^\^l 
homes." 

Here is no hostility to the fraternity homes, their helpfulness 
is acknowledged: but what manner of intelligence permits *^a 
strong feeling" that a town would afford desirable homes in the 
houses of its citizens for college students numbering nearly one 
quarter of the total population ? What habits of catch- word plead- 
ing are revealed in the argument that the "homes" opened to 
several boarders are homes for the students in the intended mean- 
ing of the latter word? As Mr. Birdseye sa3^s: "^Tiat is there 
homelike or home-making about the average cheap boarding house 
of a college town? On the contrary for the student its tendency 
is rather ^to drive him to drink/ or something worse." But ob- 
structionists of this sort may readily become supporters of the 
needed measures. T'hey know that the fraternity home is as good 
as the prevailing manners and morals of the student body allow, 
and that it would make no material difference* whether the col- 
lege barred fraternities and supplied houses sufficient to accom- 
modate all in voluntary groups, or allowed some to be chapter 
houses and supplied the rest. It should not be difficult to lead 
them to see clearly that scattered boarding in the town is generally 
not good for the young men (and far worse for young women), 
and that neither big dormitories nor arbitrarily-made smaller 
groups can yield the desired home features and influences. 

With those who seek only to tear down it seems useless to 
argue, — though they should be argued against for the enlighten- 
ment of a too credulous public. 

It would not be a matter of vital importance, if any university 
or all universities should decide to bar out fraternities and supply 
houses for student-home groups, if the step were taken in a just 



Except in respect to alumni influences. See page 461. 



THE SELECTION 459 

and honorable way. But any university fosters a viper that may 
ultimately sting it to death or madness, when it countenances such 
attacks on the fraternities as are now disgracing some state uni- 
versities. Whatever else they may be, the college fraternity and 
chapter house are no more ^^mdemocratic" than the family and 
the family home are undemocratic; indeed, those who are attack- 
ing the one today may attack the other tomorrow. ^^If they do 
these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" 
Omens thicken in many quarters. 

If the life of the fraternity groups in any college is bad, the 
wavs of the student-body from which they have been selected are 
never any better. The fraternities' ideals of selection are often 
compromised for numbers and oth'^r meretritious purposes, yet 
much less than ideals have been compromised by the governing 
bodies and administrative officers. The selection at least tends 
toward decency and certain fundamental virtues — such as reli- 
ability. These facts have, indeed, no logical bearing on the at- 
tacks- against the college fraternity now agitating several state 
universities, for in them selection of any sort is denounced as 
undemocratic. That principle is categorically avowed in printed 
appeals to the people and in the bills introduced in legislatures; 
for, of course, in every case the agitators try to call in the legis- 
latures to settle this affair of college life. The character of the 
actual selection is not, however, altogether irrelevant, because, 
although logically superfluous, the complaint is added that it is 
based on money. The charge is a slander, as is proved by the 
number of invitations regretfully declined on account of the neces- 
sary expense. There is a distinction here too fine for down- 
leveling agitators or for a mob deceived by them, but it will be 
plain to the candid reader. The expense is often burdensome 
because these groups are struggling to pay for houses which ought 
to be supplied by the college at lovv^ rentals; sometimes the neces- 



460 CLUBS IN" NON-FRATEENITY COLLEGES 

sary expense of commodious quarters and good service is more 
than a much desired man can afford. Too much weight is fre- 
quently given to high marks in the registrar's records or to signs 
of popularity, but the selection is lased on character* and con- 
geniality for friendly intimacy. Poverty interferes only as it does 
in all the affairs of life that involve pecuniary cost. Companion- 
ship is not limited by the club connections. Intimate friendships 
between men who are and men who are not members of frater- 
nities flourish freely. 

- It is hardly worth while to discuss the x\merican college frater- 
nity as an abstract idea. Some countries get along very well 
without it, just as they get along without the American forms of 
''college spirit'' and alumni devotion.** It is enough to say that 
the societies and groups formed in non-fraternity colleges*** are 



*Mistak€s are made, but no reputable college fraternity ever wittingly 
extends an invitation to a man capable, for instance, of wishing to de- 
prive others of comforts or pleasures that he cannot himself afford, or 
of whimpering against the freedom of others to choose their own associates. 

**Tlie German student goes from one university to another; he thinks 
of his teachers, not of the institution where at last he happened to stand 
for his degree. If one were telling of his degree in philosophy, he might, 
for instance, say, "I heard Paulsen and Kuno Fischer, each for four 
semesters." Whether the degree came at Berlin or Heidelberg would be 
an immaterial point." 

***A recent highly colored story of college life was popularly understood 
to be descriptive of the college fraternities (as evidenced by innumerable 
editorial and '"'Open Forum" comments), whereas it dealt with a society 
in a nonfraternity college. 

The anti-fraternity circular mentioned in the next paragraph published 
the statement: "Last sumer a man prominent in State Politics, a former 
fraternity man at Princeton University, made a tour of the high schools 
in opposition to fraternities at the State Universiity." There have been 
no fraternities, nor even local secret societies, at Princeton for more than 
half a century. The class clubs, peculiar to Princeton^, are more expen- 
sive and more exclusive than the fraternity chapters at any other college. 
E. E. Slosson says: "The lines are so sharply drawn between the classes 
that a Freshman cannot cultivate a friendship with a Sophomore, or a 
Sophomore with a Junior, without being suspected of improper motives, 
and a man has to be careful from the start to be seen always with the 



ANTI-FRATEKNITY AGITATIONS 461 

subject [o the sarae abuses, and lack the moral support that comes 
from the central authorities of the national organizations. 

The fraternities afford a channel for an alumni influence which 
might be and often is exerted helpfully. This is at least worth 
considering; Mr. Birdseye deems it a very important factor: 

''In the nonfraternity colleges there is no similar agency whereby the 
alumni are systematically put in touch Avith the family lives of the un- 
dergraduates. I have discussed with the college authorities, alumni, and 
undergraduates of the leading nonfraternity colleges the relations of their 
graduates to the undergraduates in the college home plane, and have 
found that, almost without exception, there was not even a conception of 
close co-operation between the alumni and students such as prevails in a 
good fraternity chapter. In the leading nonfraternity university it was 
baldly put by an undergraduate as follows: 'The alumni are back num- 
bers, and if they do not mind their own business we will make them do 
so. We have no use for them except to help us in athletics.' . . . 
Instructors who had come from, fraternity colleges have repeatedly told 
me they had been shocked to find that these words correctly expressed the 
sentiments with which the alumni were regarded by the undergraduates 
in that university. Up to the present time there is no agency in the non- 
fraternity college through w^hich the influence of the alumni can be per- 
manently and surely exerted in the college home." 

In the anti-fraternity agitations of which I have knowledge, 
the most serious feature is the part played by the faculties. In 
some cases members of the faculty have deliberately incited stu- 
dents amenable to such a suggestion to raise the outcry. In a 
pamphlet circulated last year all over a certain State by a student 
committee in its state university, appealing for popular support 
of their bill in the legislature to outlaw college fraternities, the 
committee said: "We have been criticised for appealing to the 
legislature in advance of placing the matter before the Faculty 



right set, or he will be shut out from an upper-class club." Ihis is ex- 
aggeration; but no one could say anything approaching it about the fra- 
ternities in other colleges. If fraternities were outlawed, less desirable 
substitutes would take their place. 



462 SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 

or Board of Eegents. ... We were advised that the authori- 
ties would prefer to have such higher authority as is represented 
by the legislature act in the premises, and so place the responsi- 
bility on the law-making power of the state in the first instance.'^ 
In a preceding paragraph the same speakers declared that they 
were "representing three-fourths of the student bod}^/' which is 
a gross exaggeration, and more artful misrepresentations abound 
in their lengthy complaint; but I have reason to believe that the 
statement quoted was substantially true. I do not mean that 
either the faculty or the regents wanted the legislature to inter- 
fere, but that I believe the students "were advised" as stated, and 
that the advice came, as implied, from members of the faculty. 
The public acts of this faculty show plainly enough how some of 
its members haxe succeeded in getting their ideas of government 
applied to the fraternities. Among its ordinances are: 

(1) Xo student not a regular member of the fraternity may 
board or room in a chapter house. (2) N'o student can be pledged 
or initiated before he has passed in one session at least four full 
courses. (3) No one may board or lodge in a chapter house 
unless he passed in at least four courses in the preceding term,, 
and one boarding or lodging in a chapter house whose mid-term 
report shows he is not passing in at least four courses, or who 
at the end of a term shall fail to pass in at least four courses, 
must cease to board or lodge in such a house and may not return 
until he has passed in at least four courses in a subsequent term. 
Furthermore, the faculty dictated to a "Pan Hellenic Council'' 
vested with authority to bind all the fraternities, and by threat 
of Svorse and mere of it^ coerced it into adopting regulations such 
as the following: (a) No fraternity man may entertain in any 
way that involves expense a student not eligible to membership 
under the faculty regulations, — lunches, theater, drives, athletic 
contests, etc., being expressly forbidden, (b) Xon-fraternity 



SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS -J:63 

men shall not be entertained at a chapter house at any sort of 
reception given by a fraternity, (c) After pitiful protests 
against some worse provision, the representatives of the faculty 
agreed that a non-fraternity man might take a meal at a chapter 
house, provided that any one man may not be invited oftener 
than once in any one month, (d) My memorandum of some 
other regulations is not clear enough to give them accurately; 
what has been given is sufficient, but I can add accurately: "No 
intimation shall be given to any man that he is likely to receive" 
an invitc^tion to join a fraternity; the invitation shall be sent in 
writing; and "from the time a bid is sent until it is answered, 
the subject must net be mentioned to the recipient during that 
time by the senders.'^ 

I understand that no fraternity has yet withdrawn the charter 
of its chapter at this university; but if such action is not taken 
at their next conventions (unless protest against the conditions 
secures remedy) the fraternities will make themselves a party to 
their own swift deterioration. It must not be supposed that 
these regulations were not justly characterized and protested 
against in the faculty meetings at which they were passed. I 
know that indignant protests were made. They were of no avail 
for reasons that have been explained in previous chapters. To 
impose these indecorous rules upon young men who could obey 
them under protest, would have been an evil folly not altogether 
without parallel; but the coercing of the young men into the self- 
stultification and self-abasement of adopting a part of the regu- 
lations themselves, constitutes the moral nadir for all the instances 
of maladministration by college authorities with which observa- 
tion and investigation have brought me acquainted. 

It oppresses and almost confuses ni}- mind and heart to realize 
that the inconsistencies of these laws may not be apparent and 
their spirit offensive to every reader, — seeing that they were en- 



464 SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 

acted by men who are governing a big university! I can only 
point out some things that seem to me self-evident, and add the 
fact that the purpose avowed by the faculty was to help the fra- 
ternities to avoid undemocratic exclusiveness and low scholarship, 
with the express statement that ^^students should have the right, 
under appropriate restrictions to form self-perpetuating invitation 
clubs :''* 

What effect on "exclusiveness" should be expected from (1) and 
from (a), (b), and (c) ? The inconsistency affects only the 
authors; how will these laws affect the home life of their victims? 
The university concerned has over two thousand students; it pro- 
vides one dormitory for about one hundred men, and another for 
less than one hundred women. The anti-fraternity circular con- 
tains am_ong its accusations: "Our fraternities here are growing 
more and more ambitious to outdo each other in securing ex- 
pensive chapter houses with fine appointments." I saw none (and 
I think I have seen them all) as "fine" as any college would put up 
in building its own student-hom^e houses. The fraternity chapters, 
helped by their alumni, are simply tr}T.ng to make decent homes. 
The alternative would be boarding around in the town. !N'ow 
comes a faculty making laws that, if a chapter house has a vacant 
room, it shall not be occupied by a man who is not a member of 
the fraternity; that when a youth comes to college he shall not 
visit even an elder brother in his chapter home at meal time 
oftener than once in one month; that no man during his whole 
college life, unless he joins a fraternity, mav have free intercourse 



*Ref erring to the fraternities, which had been distinguished from "ap- 
plication" clubs, e. g., the Y. M. C. A. 

At this point the report presents the curious remark: "In this con- 
nection, it may be stated that young women nave the right to accept or 
reject the acquaintance, or company, of any man, without necessarily rais- 
ing the imputation of snobbishness or exclusiveness." The reader may 
surmise who it was that stood in need of this piece of information; the 
document saith not. 



SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 465 

with friends or acquaintances who live in the only student-homes 
in the place; and so on. Imagine a couple of brothers or friends 
returning from a walk* at supper time, parting at the home of 
the elder — "Sorry T can't ask you in. old man, it must be three 
weeks yet before 3^ou can stop with us again/' On the walls of 
some of these homes may be hanging the motto — 

The beauty of the home is Order — 

The peace of the home is Contentment — 

The glory of the home is Hospitality. 

If SO, they may have turned its face to the wall, and they might 
write on the back of it Ichahod. 

The advocates of these laws seem unable to comprehend the 
ideas of a home which they have ruthlessly desecrated; but let me 
tell them that they reckoned without their host, if the "Against 
Fraternities" circular threw them into a panic by its threat that 
the university must abolish the fraternity homes or lose the ap- 
proval of farmers. Most rural homes are hospitable. If the facts 
were explained to the farmers, they would be much more offended 
by these administrative acts than if every fraternity man (instead 
of possibly two in a hundred) sported an automobile. Many farm- 
ers indulge in luxurious distinctions themselves, and those who 
cannot afford procelain batlitubs and hot water, or automobiles, 
do not look upon the use of those things as "undemocratic," — for 
even the few farmers who are communists generally have enough 
sense and character to distinguish that theory from democracy. 
As to the two young women of whom the circular says, "the humil- 
iation they suffered in not being invited to join a sorority** caused 



*Had there been a baseball game the one could not have taken the 
other to see it. 

**Some articles have been published in which extravagance in dress has 
been blamed on the sororities. That opinion is obtuse. The sororit'cs 
tend slightly to moderate this particular extravagance, for the reason 
that young women who are willing to extort the means from over-indul- 



"^^^ SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 

them to leave the university/' I venture to guess that they did not 
come from "the rural population.'" Country girls generally have 
better sense. 

The whole influence of university life ought to tend to lift 
souls above envy, or foolish spending beyond present fortune in 
imitation of those able to spend freely. Of course, it should cause 
neither disappointment nor censure, that some who come within 
its sphere of influence are not redeemed from vices and follies 
engendered in the life of the people at large; but what ought to- 
be said of a university in which young men and young women 
who succumb to such follies are officially coddled, as nurses pet 
babies who have bitten their tongues crying out against the naughty 
teeth? If a student leaves a "university" of this sort, avowing- 



gent fathers are a little restrained by the fact that many of their "sis- 
ters" are not able to do so. This restraint is not very strong; but if 
competition in such vanities were thoroughly promiscuous, the considera- 
tion that is given to the narrower resources of chosen equals and com- 
panions in one household would not operate at all. Alas! nothing but 
good taste and certain principles now fostered only in exceptionally high-^ 
minded families could restrain the common extravagance. Sorority mem- 
bership has very little to do with it, either way. The young women who 
spend upwards of $100 a month on clothes would be spending yet more 
had they gone into "society" at their home towns instead of going to col- 
lege, — and they will be no more considerate of their husbands than they 
are of their fathers. Everywhere this extravagance is more frequently 
committed by those who cannot, than by those who can afford the ex- 
pense; parents who do not own a house and sometimes find difficulty in 
paying the rent for the one they live in, bring up daughters in this 
fashion. The condition has grown up in the mores of our people, but is 
more conspicuous in our Western than in our Eastern States. In both, 
girls over-dress; but in the West, high-school girls desire to wear and 
many of them do wear to school dresses and jewelry more elaborate than 
any seen in the halls of Eastern colleges, and such as some surviving 
mothers would not allow daughters to wear, while still at school or college, 
even to parties or dances. A professor in the university in which this 
turmoil about fraternities is in progress, gave it out that he had inven- 
toried jewelry worn by young women in his laboratory classes at more 
than $3,000. His appraisement was probably too low; but it is absurd to 
lay the blame for either the extravagance or the poor taste on the 
sororities. 



SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 467 

that he cannot bear to see others spending more than he can, or 
enjoying companionship to which he is not invited, the case is 
held up as a grievous Avroni^ done to a sensitive spirit, and the 
lavish or exclusive persons are berated and wailed over and regu- 
lated by maudlin laws. Do such practices represent a desirable 
"preparation for life"? All true and enlightened friends of their 
fellow men will have one judgment in this matter; but T suggest 
that the least altruistic taxpayer may well spend a little of his val- 
uable time to ascertain what sentiments and principles in such 
matters are inculcated by the educational institutions he is helping 
to pay for. The ultimate clash out of which industrial and social 
peace may be established will not be between the natural allies, 
capital and labor; it will come between the upholders of (co-oper- 
ative) individualism and the exploiters and parasites of col- 
lectivism. 

Consider the foundation of Rule 3 on a slightly lower average 
for the grades given to fraternity as compared with non-fraternity 
men. Several explanations* besides lower scholarship might be 
offered; but assuming the official interpretation, is the law justi- 
fiable? Five courses in this university is the regular load; a 
student must get special permission to carry six. Yet if a fra- 
ternitv man seems"^'-' to be failino- in tv\'o of his five courses, he 



*E. g. : Some instructors give "pass" marks to a student who, they 
say, is "doing his best," for actual results inferior to those of another 
student, not passed, who "could do better if he would try." They do not 
conceal this practice; on the contrary they advocat-e it, and, at their own 
initiative, expatiate to wronged students about this principle of theirs. 
In their minds, the means are somehow justified by the end; but the fact 
remains that they bear false witness (both ways) and add the specific 
transgressions of the unfair umpire and the unjust judge. No sophistry 
can justify this conduct to a candid youth; and little do such college 
teachers imagine the moral repulsion they excite, or through what depth 
of disdain brave young men stoop to give them outward respect. 

**The eviction is ordered at the end of a term and even at mid-term. 
There are three terms in the nine-months' session; term reports are 
made for all students, and, in addition, mid-term reports "for students 



468 SOME PECULIAR REGULATIONS 

is incontinently cast out of house and home to find bed and board 
somewhere else. This doubtless violates the student's rights under 
the law of the land, but no sensible man attempts to force him- 
self on a college through the courts; he submits or leaves. 

Consider the statute (d). In the first place it is absurd, because 
the recipient of the invitation needs to ask various questions. 
There is a deeper objection. The entire set of regulations puts a 
premium on deception, but this one cannot be treated in good 
faith. It must corrupt every corruptible fraternity group. It is 
practically impossible to avoid the forbidden ^intimation," if there 
is to be no communication after the invitation; because, to tell 
a man previously the amount of chapter dues, what room a new 
member might take, and other necessar}^ information intimates a 
coming invitation. To cap the climax, all these regulations are 
put under a so-called '^'honor system." Is deliberate approval of 
this regulation psychologically possible for a man who attaches 
due importance to his own word and to truthfulness in other men? 

Could any condition of the fraternity homes justify the adopted 
regulations? As a matter of fact, no breaches of decorum in them 
are alleged or suggested, even in the •'^Against Fraternities" cir- 
cular. Social prejudices (said to be ^'^felt" by non-fraternity stu- 
dents), low scholarship, and "permanent compact minorities in 
student politics," were the accusations made in lengthy disquisi- 
tions. What is to be thought of these laws framed to meet the 
alleged conditions,* supposing the conditions to be as stated ? 

The governing board ought never interfere in such affairs by 
any legislation of its own; but if the regents of the university 



doing work below the passing grade." Thus passing is a lock-step affair. 
Of course, it is to be assumed that there are some independent members 
of the faculty who do not teach in secondary school fashion and hence 
do not grade so frequently — disregarding the rules. 

*I find no reference, even in the long faculty report, to earnest denials 
presented by the fraternities. 



STUDENT SELF-GOVERNMENT 469 

involved in this case deem that these measures adopted in the 
name of the faculty constitute evidence that the faculty's com- 
bined wisdom is not functioning properly, a duty rests upon them 
to ascertain for their own future guidance,* what members of 
the facult-y proposed the laws or supported them in debate. If it 
be found that any such hold administrative appointments,** the 
executive officer of the board should be requested to give careful 
considerafion to nominating other men for those positions of 
special influence. The board should make appointments only as 
nominated by the president; but that officer should be held re- 
sponsible for his nominations. Whenever it appears to a board 
that its executive officer has made a serious mistake, both duty 
and friendship prompt to frank interrogatories and discussion — 
which should lead either to correction of the error or to justifi- 
cation of what seemed an error. In this particular case, I believe 
the course here recommended would incidentally remedy many 
other things that may have been causing anxiety. 

Student Self -Government. 

Persons not in touch with the most recent doings in many 
state universities can hardly realize what student self-government 
has come to mean in some "progressive" quarters. Years ago, 
when no fuss was made about it, or set term used for it, it meant 
that the student governed his own conduct without a handbook 
of rules and regulations — misconduct being adjudged and penal- 
ties being imposed by the faculty*** or its officers on general prin- 
ciples of morality and decorum. 



*Cf. pp. 135-136. 

**Including faculty committees which, in this case, are appointed by 
the president, as well as the appointments made by the board on nomina- 
tion by its executive officer. Cf. pp. 133; 226; etc. 

***In a few exceptional institutions the student body had instinctively 
assumed charge of one point of honor and quietly imposed one dread 



470 STUDENT GOVERNMENT 

Then came agitations — in no case, I believe, originated spontar- 
neausly by students — described in 1906 by Dean Bessey: 

"In all this talk about the desirability of having the students take 
some part in the government of the college, . . . we may as well 
understand first as last that there are a great many places in even the 
most democratic society where 'representation' is impracticable, and where 
tlie 'governed' are not competent to have any voice in the government, or 
even if competent, do not want to be bothered about the matter. We 
cannot run railway trains or steamships by a committee of the passen- 
gers. When I go aboard of either, I am too busy with my own affairs 
to be willing to Svork my way' by taking part in the management. So 
too it is with the college boy. He expects us to manage things, himself 
included, and he rarely has time to turn to in order to take part in what 
is manifestly our own business. . . . 

"In my opinion, based upon fifteen years of experience with it, 'student 
government,' so-called, is impracticable in so far as permanent results 
are concerned. I took prominent part in a prolonged attempt to secure 
a 'Condition in which the students could and would govern themselves. 
It was fairly successful only as long as the faculty watched every step 
taken by the student ofiieers. When we relaxed our watchfulness the 
^government' fell into innocuous desuetude." 

But some deans of a different sort from Dean Bessey — men 
who, I fear, can learn as little from their own experience as they 
have learned from the experience of others — have seized upon 
^^Student Self-Government" for a hobby and are galvanizing it 
into fantastic tricks which may be making angels weep and will 
certainly cause terrestrial groans to be uttered before long. 

Several state universities have been precipitated to almost in- 
credible extremes; yet some of their representatives are so lauding 
their progressive systems, that others seem about to follow suit. 
To describe an extreme case: A dean got his invention ^'con- 
sidered" and approved by a mass meeting of students, and a Con- 



penalty for any breach thereof. See the following section on "The Honor 
System." 



STUDENT GOVERNMENT 471 

■stitution, theoretically desired and adopted by the student body, 
was ratified by the general faculty The catalog of the univer- 
sity states that the government is of "tripartite form, the president 
of the Students^ Association (i. e., all students) being the execu- 
tive, the Students' Assembly being the legislative branch, and the 
Students' Council being the judicial branch"; but, as I read a 
copy of the Constitution of the same date (1913), the quondam 
authorities of the university must execute the laws of the new 
legislative power and also be sheriff for the new court. In the 
Constitution the said president is strictly a tripartite presider, not 
an executive at all, his duties being to preside over mass meetings, 
over meetings of the legislature, and over the court. The "As- 
sembly," or legislature, consists of fifteen students elected by dif- 
ferent divisions and classes, and the president and vice president 
of the student body. The legislature's power is unlimited* (sub- 
ject to the Constitution), saving only that the president of the 
university has a veto power. The faculty is out of it — literally 
obliterated. The court consists of eighteenf members — one iiiore 
than the legislature. Something in the twenty-six pages of the 
Constitution may have been overlooked, but I find no appellate 
jurisdiction. The judicial branch is made absolute — on paper. 
As a matter of fact, according to my latest information a con- 
demned student recently appealed to the faculty. It could do 
nothing constitutionally, but its original jurisdiction being not 
expressly resigned to the student body, the Constitution might be 
interpreted as having set up a concurrent conflicting jurisdiction. 



*"Shall have power to legislate in all matters of general student in- 
terest. . . . Any measure passed shall become a law and binding on 
the Student Body ten days from the dat€^ of its presentation to the Presi- 
dent of the University, provided the same is not vetoed during this period 
by the President of tlie University." — Constitution. 

tSo in 1913 Constitution; in an article published in March, 1914, 
twenty members of this judicial branch of the government are mentioned. 
Probably some element was found to be "unrepresented." 



472 STUDENT GOVERNMENT 

Previously, aiitliority to impose penalties for breaches of disci- 
pline, short of expulsion, had been delegated to the president, with 
provision that he might ask a faculty committee to share his re- 
sponsibility. The president and such a committee retried the 
case. The faculty "declined to take jurisdiction." The second 
judgment, I understand, modified the first, but not enough to 
suit the plaintiff. The student appealed to the Board of Regents. 
The Eegents tried the case a third time and rendered a mate- 
rially different decision. The intentions of all were good, and 
we may assume that each action was justified by its premises; 
but is this a good system to set up'? How can it be doubted that 
this instance is but a slight foretaste of things to come. 

In the extreme cases, action too definite and binding has been 
taken by the responsible authorities, and an element in the student 
bodies has suddenly taken too kindly to politics,* for this matter to 



*Some time ago I happened to be in a college town while a campaign 
for the offices of the student government was under way. Passing through 
the University's halls I walked on — sometimes through — a litter of po- 
litical ''dodgers" of various colors and sizes (from several square feet to 
a few square inches) which were strewn thick on all the floor space I 
saw. Outside, the walks were scattered over with the same documents, 
which were also posted on trees and other objects to which they could 
be attached. Never have I seen a more revolting spectacle of physical 
disorder, but the moral purport of the ugly broadsides was a thing far 
worse. Some of them were so aspersive that, a few^ years ago in the 
same university, their authors would have been under the necessity of 
fighting. The graduates from this collegiate practice in "citizenship" will 
evidently need very little more skin-thickening to go comfortably through 
the primary elections for the future nominations about which they may 
now be defiling themselves in dreams. Constitutional amendments, as well 
as persons, were under fire: I pulled off a tree a 14x10 placard protest- 
ing against an amendment to reduce the numerical power of freshmen 
(who made more than half the student body) in the government. The 
freshmen — bless their hearts — were doubtless quite as innocent as are the 
people, of m.any demands made in their name in "practical politics." The 
faculty was given a foretaste of things to come {data fata secutus) : 
"The faculty is in favor of it because it will be easier for it to control 
the Council." The self-obliterating faculty had doubtless formed no such 
design, — and if, some time, they are startled into attempting by such 



STUDENT GOVERNMENT 473 

subside into the '^innocaous desuetude*' of tlie experiments referred 
to by Dean Bessey. It must be stopped as it was made — at one 
stroke^, or it will rim a troubled and troublesome course. 

In the extreme cases 'sure-enough' legislatures are grinding out 
statutes intended really to control the daily walk and conversation 
of thousands of persons. These statutes will accumulate; because 
the avowed idea of practice for the political activities of the citizen 
at large, will suggest to most candidates platforms of proposed 
laws. As the statutes accumulate will not the "judicial branch'^ 
be kept rather busy? Will the litigious spirit thus engendered, 
or individual recalcitration, always stop with such appeals as have 
been made to boards of regents? Will not those boards, before 
long, be hailed into the courts of the land? This is one of the 
things to be expected. 

It may be objected that T have presented only the negative side. 
An innovation ought to have strong affirmative support. What is 
the avowed purpose? In expositions of the schemes, intended to 
commend them for imitation, I find only (besides pointless harp- 
ing on the word "democracy^') that training for citizenship is 
afforded. Some advocates estimate that the practice in law- 
making will be more valuable than any course of professorial in- 
struction. Is practice in making laws the proper preparation for 
law-making? A physician is prepared for prescription-writing not 
by writing prescriptions but by studying physiology, pathology, 
and materia medica; and if his preparatory studies include prac- 
tice in writing prescriptions they are written for criticism not for 
patients. To preserve health and cure disease, it is as important 



devices to lay the spirit tliey have raised, it will be in vain. This out- 
cry was just a little vote-getter. That is the way in which settlement 
by voting is reached in matters that ought not to be voted on at all. The 
youngsters knew what they were about. Such smartness is open to every- 
one who is Avllling to stoop to it; the "practice" about which the advo- 
cates of the system prate is quite superfluous. 



474 STUDENT GOVERNMENT 

to know when not to write a prescription for any medicine at all, 
as to know the right medicine when a prescription is needed. The 
same is true of legislation. Laws ought not to be made 'for exer- 
cise.' Yet precisely that (making effective laws for exercise) is 
what this claim amounts to. Is this aping of the most dangerous 
vice of democracy the "training for democratic citizenship" that a 
university ought to give? 

If it be ansAvered that the students wished to prescribe and take 
their own medicine, I should say that it would make no difference 
if it were true; but that it is not trae. Think of a mass meeting 
of students (half of them youths and maids freshly come to col- 
lege) listening to speeches by the inventive dean and by some 
members of the faculty whose work 'tends to the administrative 
side' and by ambitious students/' — and then voting on a great 
proposal about "self-government." What sort of basis for univer- 
sity organization is that? And what of the minority who did 
not vote at all or voted no? Did this minority include the few 
who can keep their head in such a sharp trial of character and 
intelligence? It is their right to say — as I know some of them 
feel: "We came here to submit ourselves to be governed by the 
constituted authorities ; they ought to know how ; we do not think 
many laws are needed; we ourselves are unwilling to assume au- 
thority over the general conduct of our fellows; we are willing 
to take charge of a point of honor, such as cheating, and relieve 
authority of any need to make a law on the subject, but we see 
only harm to all, if students who seek or would accept such office 
are chosen to govern us in all our doings; we believe it is bad for 
us and worse for them, and we protest against it." 

The claim to the most advanced position in student self-govern- 
ment, made by the inventors of the system we have described, was 



*It would be easy for any member of the faculty to find out whether 
or not everyone of those students afterwards ran for office. I did not 
care myself to keek into such details. 



STUDENT GOVERNMENT 475 

doubtless true in respect to faculty action and Constitutions; but 
there are now rivals for that bad eminence, and in reaction from 
the student side it has been surpassed. Current reports of the 
strike of the Wisconsin Student Workers' Union make that phe- 
nomenon the most enterprising thing yei heard of in the way of 
government by students — ^^the strikers seeking in this case* to 
control, not their fellow students but the business management 
of the university. A new central kitchen afforded conveniences 
which made some of the waiters and kitchen helpers superfluous. 
Twenty out of one hundred and thirty such student employes 
Avere given notice that after a few weeks there would be no more 
work for them. The twenty persons concerned received the an- 
nouncem^ent in good spirit, it being plain that their services were 
no longer needed. Other students, not employed by the univer- 
sity but interested in organized agitation, called mass meetings, 
and ^iDrought about a condition of hysteria which affected a large 
proportion of the student employes." A union was organized, 
alleged to have more than four hundred members. The union 
demanded that all present and future business of the commons 
be submitted to it for approval, with provision for a board of arbi- 
tration satisfactory to the union. It was declared that if their 
demands were not acceded to there would be walkouts by boarders 



*The system for the regular government of students at tlie University 
of Wisconsin is not much behind the system described. Indeed, recent 
acts of the responsible authorities appear to have closed up any gap. By 
latest . report, the Wisconsin student is under a student legislative body 
which undertakes to direct and control him in nearly all his doings : 
*'This elective body not only assumes jurisdiction over the student as an 
individual, but, like an interstate commerce commission, it regulates the 
activities of various student organizations, particularly those alleged to 
have aristocratic tendencies. It fixes penalties for the infraction of stu- 
<lent laws, authorizes arrests, and sees that culprits are brought before 
the Student Court, where they are tried and sentenced. . . . The 
faculty has already recognized its jurisdiction. The Regents have agreed 
not to alter or abridge the control of Student Self-G-overnment, except 
through process of conference." 



476 RATIONAL STUDENT GOVERNMENT 

and sympathetic strikes in the town which would close every 
dining room in Madison. "Hearings were held before the regents, 
but all efforts to change the attitude of the leaders were futile." 
When compelled to act, the legitimate authority acted vigorously. 
A reliable account in a quarterly review reports: 

"The administration ordered the doors of the dining halls closed, locked, 
and guarded. . . . The debarred student waiters, boarders, and guests 
gathered on the campus dumbfounded that a public institution should 
close its doors to the populace. All the stage machinery that accompanies 
a real strike and lockout was brought into requisition — circulars were 
issued appealing for the sympathy of the public, and implying that poor 
students had been discharged for no other reason than that they belonged 
to the Union, and stating that girls working their way through college 
had been dismissed because they had expressed sympathy. Mass meetings 
were called, speakers were imported, inflammatory addresses were deliv- 
ered, additional resolutions adopted, and appeals made to the Federation 
of Labor, to the State Industrial Commission, and to the Grovernor. 
But in due time the members of the Student Workers' Union found that 
their services were not indispensable, that State institutions do not in- 
variably yield to the pressure of organized resistance, and as chastened 
individuals they applied for such positions as remained vacant, and went 
back to work." 

An urgent duty rests upon university men to consider critically 
the drift into such troubled waters. The spell of emotional agi- 
tators and the craft of publicity agents must be disregarded, and 
the question faced squarely. Rational student self-government has 
nothing to do with imitating the legislatures and courts and com- 
missions of a state government. Let the faculty enact the few 
statutes required; let its officers execute those laws, and deal with 
unexpressed matters according to their wisdom; and let the stu- 
dents go about their proper business, — and all would be as orderly 
and pleasant as human affairs can be. 

All obseiTcrs who wish to see and report the truth, distorting 
nothing to suit a preconception, bear the same testimony, whether 



THE HONOR SYSTEM 477 

they comprehend the matter or not. For instance, the absence 
of "tangible machinery" at which Mr. Slosson wonders in his 
observation of student self-government at Yale is a requisite for, 
not a puzzling deficit in the conditions candidly reported, although 
not understood, by him : 

"A stranger wlio tries to see Yale will be disappointed, because so 
much of it and the best of it is invisible. I felt on the campus as I do 
in the dynamo room of a great power house. I knew that I was in the 
presence of forces obviously powerful but imperceptible to my senses. 
There is not enough tangible machinery about Yale to account for the 
work it is doing. The Yale undergraduates seem to train, control, and 
discipline themselves, leaving little for the official authorities to do • in 
this way. In fact President Hadley has explicitly recognized this in say- 
ing that, 'if the chairman of the Yale News Board is a man of the right 
type — and he almost always is — he is the most) efficient disciplinary officer 
of the university.' " 

The Honor System. 

The code, or spirit by which students in some schools and col- 
leges successfully sjovern themselves in respect to truth and fair 
dealing, has never been and can never be adopted instantly and 
full-fledged. It is a vital growth, and flourishes only in a con- 
genial climate. Its seeds are everywhere being planted by those 
who have such seed to plant. If the sowers be many and the 
climate favorable (there is always some good soil), a time will 
come when thrifty stalks will grow thick enough to choke out the 
tares, — and then the ^'system^' will flourish if protected from those 
who try to engraft on it alien things, and if not overflowed too 
deeply by annual deposits of raw soil. The simple method and 
secret of the planting are — "the method, trust; the secret, exalted 
personal virtue reaching down and lifting up to its own plane the 
unspoiled lives of ingenuous boys.''* 

The genesis of the honor system at the University of Virginia 



Words of Prof. Wm. M. Thornton. 



478 THE HONOR SYSTEM 

differed from commonly given accounts of it. Its invention is 
frequently attributed to Thomas Jefferson and the impression is 
left that it has been in operation from the opening of the uni- 
versity in 1825. Jefferson did lay the foundation for it, but in 
this matter he builded better than he knew and quite differently 
from his prognostication. His architectural plan rendered espion- 
age on the student's privacy impracticable; and the noble philos- 
ophy of his plans for freedom of teaching, freedom of learnings 
and freedom of private conduct gave a broad and sure foundation 
for goodly edifices of every kind. But his plan for dealing with 
overt misconduct requiring punishment, was the very opposite of 
the practice which grew up in its stead. In "enactments for the 
Government of the University," drawn in Jefferson's own hand 
and enacted by the Board of Visitors of which he was Rector, 
after provision for expulsion, suspension, and reproof by the fac- 
ulty for some major offenses, it was provided : 

"Minor offenses may be referred to a board of six Censors, to be named 
by the faculty from the most discreet of the students, whose duty it shall 
be, sitting as a board, to inquire into the facts, propose the minor pun- 
ishment which they think proportioned to the offense, and to make report 
thereof to the Professors for their approbation, or their commutation of 
the penalty if it be beyond the grade of offense." 

This permissive law was never put into effect. After seventeen 
years of various other experiments and some turbulent experi- 
ences, a diametrically opposite procedure emerged — in all its moral 
beauty and power and well-nigh perfect etficiency. Says Professor 
Thornton :* 

"In the gi'adual evolution of Jefferson's ideal of academic government 
into its working form we reached a strange inversion of his plan. The 
original Enactments proposed to devolve upon the students the discipline 
of minor offenses and to reserve to the professors the infliction of major 



*ln an address to the students of Marion Military Institute in 1904 on 
'The Grenesis of the Honour System." 



THE HONOK systk:m 479 

piinishnionts. Under the Honour Systoni in its actual operation, the 
maximum punisliment is imposed by the students and all the deadly sins 
against gentleraanhood and decency have been placed under their juris- 
diction. ... To the faculty on the other hand has been left the whole 
class of minor sins and minor punishments. With capital crimes against 
academic society they have seldom, if ever, to deal." 

He continues: 

"If the history of the genesis of the honour system in the University 
of Virginia shows anything, it shows that it has not been and can never 
be the result of statutory enactment, the mushroom growth of a single 
night. Neither Virginia nor Princeton nor any other university could 
'adopt' the honour system. That lofty reverence for truth, that just and 
delicate sense of honour, that noble candor in all the relations of col- 
lege life, which are needed for its existence come not with observation. 
Such plants are not native to the arid plains of our poor human nature. 
In Virginia at least they were exotics, planted at first in a hostile soil 
and an unfriendly clime; watered with hidden tears and tended with 
sleepless care, until their roots struck deep into the college life and drew 
their needed food from strata of the human heart still unpoisoned by 
evil custom and unpolluted by evil habit. Nor can these precious growths- 
be left to bear unshielded the fiery blasts of temptation, the frosts of in- 
difference, the contagion of evil custom in athletics or other activities of 
college life, the polluting breath of base ideals or ignoble aims. We who 
have inherited the treasure are responsible for its care." 

For those who do not understand what the genuine honor system 
is, as it exists in the University of Virginia and many other schools 
and colleges, the following testimony of competent witnesses is^ 
offered. 

From an address by William Minor Lile, dean of the law facnltr 
of the University of Virginia, before the Association of American 
Law Schools in 1910: 

"Those of us, born, as it were, into the honor system, who have known 
no other, and who have lived with it and under it, have difficulty in 
realizing that there exists among intelligent educators skepticism as to 
its genuineness and efficiency. But I am assured that such skepticism. 



480 THE HONOR SYSTEM 

does prevail among the members of your association. . . . Confusion 
has resulted from ignorance of what the system really is. There has 
come to my observation no objection or criticism that did not originate 
in a colossal and appalling ignorance of the system itself. . . . 

"For some years after the establishment of the University, honesty in 
the written examinations was sought t-o be secured by the surveillance 
of an examining committee. The result was doubtless unsatisfactory. In 
1842 . . . the faculty adopted the following resolution: 'In all writ- 
ten examinations for distinction and other honors of the University, each 
candidate shall attach to the written answers presented by him a certifi- 
cate in the following words : I, A. B.. do hereby certify on honor that I 
have derived no assistance during the time of this examination from any 
source whatever, whether oral or written or in print, in giving the above 
answers.' . . . The pledge was amended so as to preclude the giving 
as well as the receiving of assistance, and in this amended form it has 
been retained to the present day. . . . All candidates prepare their 
examinations in the same room, and during the same hours. In this 
room there are no monitors, student committees, nor other detective 
machinery. The professor in charge considers himself on duty so long as 
the examination is in progress, but his function is rather as chairman 
of the assembly. He is in and out of the room at irregular intervals, as 
suits his convenience. His presence from time to time is not only a 
necessary part of the proceeding, but it testifies his interest in the occa- 
sion and lends it added dignity. His presence serves the further purpose 
of clearing up those obscurities that will creep into his questions, how- 
ever carefully set. But neither in theory nor in practice does he play 
the role of detective. Such a role would in itself be a flagrant violation 
of the system, and would be resented by the student body with indignant 
protest. As the professor is at liberty to leave the room at pleasure, so 
the students freely exercise the same privilege. But, since every student 
appreciates the delicacy of the situation, he is careful not to incur the 
risk of criticism by going unaccompanied to his room, or absenting him- 
self for any considerable period from the observation of his fellows. 

"Originally, the system dealt only with breaches of the pledge appended 
to the written examination. In course of time, and by evolution of stu- 
dent public opinion, its scope has widened, until at the present time it 
embraces any offense seriously involving the student's honor. Its latest 
conquest has been in the field of athletic sport — ^condemning as it does, 



HONOR SYSTEM 481 

participation in athletic contests when the player is conscious of dis- 
qualification under the rules of amateur sportsmanship. ... 

"The student makes no pledge in advance. His implied obligation does 
not include obedience to University ordinances, onr to faculty regulations. 
All of these he may violate without infraction of the honor system, pro- 
vided his offense does not involve a lie or a cheat, nor otherwise a breach 
of faith. . . . 

"From the moment of his matriculation, every student is presumed, by 
the faculty, and by his fellows, to be a man of honor and worthy of 
their trust. If not already a disciple of the system — as, from circum- 
stances to be mentioned presently, many freshmen are — he learns within 
a few days that he has become a member of a miniature, self-governing 
community, with but one rule of conduct, and that is, the exercise of 
absolute candor and honesty in all of his relations with the body politic 
and its members. . . . Our raw freshman early learns not only the 
nature of his obligations under the system, but its penalties. . . . 
Conviction carries with it immediate expulsion from the University by 
the student body, and a disgrace that follows the delinquent for the re- 
mainder of his life. ... If the penalty seems severe, we must not for- 
get the lie and the breach of faith that accompany the offense. The mere 
act of cheating is merged in the graver offenses of falsehood, and betrayal 
of trust. The first may, conceivably, be committed on the spur of the 
moment — but signature to the pledge afterwards, makes the act a delib- 
erate falsehood. . . . 

"The fundamental concept of the system is, that it is a student code, 
interpreted and administered exclusively by the student body. To borrow 
the language of the University catalogue, 'it imposes no burden on the 
faculty. Experience has shown that the students themselves are its stern- 
est guardians and executors.' . . . From the inception of the system, 
in 1842, to the present time, there is no trace, either on the faculty 
records or in the memory of its oldest member, of faculty action against 
a student for a violation of the honor system. 

"Under the system as it prevails at the University of Virginia, any 
student who observes another cheating on examination, or otherwise vio- 
lating the code of honor, is under a moral obligation to his fellow** to 
report the circumstance promptly to such members of his class as he 
a secret investigation of the circumstances. If this inquisition seems 
to develop a prima facie case, the committee calls upon the suspected 



482 HONOR SYSTEM 

student for an explanation. Should this explanation prove satisfactory, 
there is an end of the case. Should the explanation be not satisfactory, 
the accused is given the choice of quietly withdrawing, or of standing a 
trial before the honor committee. This committee is made up of the 
presidents of the five departments of the University, and the vice-presi- 
dent of the one of which the accused is a member. The trial may be in 
private or in public, as the accused may elect. If he elect a public 
trial, the members of his class, together with such friends as the ac- 
cused may desire, are admitted, but no others. Either side may be rep- 
resented by student counsel. The proceedings are summary, and from the 
decision of this committee there is no appeal. If the accused be in fact 
guilty, as has proved to be the case in, I believe, ninety per cent of the 
accusations made — the filing of the charges usually insures his departure 
on the next train, without awaiting a trial, or even a bill of particulars. 
In rare instances the culprit has shown a bold front, and made defense. 
His conviction is uniformly followed by an order of immediate expulsion 
by the Honor Committee. There are no minor penalties. No case is 
remembered where the student remained in the University after convic- 
tion. Refusal promptly to obey the order of expulsion is practically an 
inconceivable situation . . . 

"If the impression has been created on your minds that these accusa- 
tions are of frequent occurrence, let me repeat that, as student and 
teacher, I have been in residence at the University, and in intimate con- 
tact with its student life, for nineteen years. During that time, I have 
known of less than a score of accusations made from all departments of 
the University. During a connection of seventeen years with the Law 
School, as teacher, and for the greater portion of that time as Dean of 
the department — ^within which period the total attendance of law stu- 
dents has exceeded two thousand — there have come to my knowledge less 
than a half dozen instances of a charge of suspicious conduct on the part 
of a law student. Probably no case escaped by observation, since the 
custom of the Honor Committee is to advise with the Dean, as amicus 
curiae, in all such cases arising in his department. It may be added, 
that in one of these cases only, did the accused, demand a trial, and that 
the strong prima facie case made against him was satisfactorily proved 
to have been merely a thoughtless imprudence, and his acquittal resulted. 
In the other three or four cases, the accused took leg bail, and stood not 
upon the order of their going. . . . 

"The continuity and vigor of the system have been fostered by the cir- 



HONOR SYSTEM 483 

cumstance that, through the influence of graduates sent out as teachers, 
it has been transplanted into many of the colleges and preparatory schools 
from which come most of our students. Hence, a majority of tlie fresh- 
men come to us already familiar with the system and in sympathy with 
it. These, with the returned members of the higher classes, each one of 
whom is a loj^al disciple of the system, make it possible to begin each 
session with but a comparatively small number of raw recruits to be 
broken in. Nor, as already stated, are these long in learning the priv- 
ileges and penalties of the system, for the atmosphere is vibrant with it. 
It appeals to the best there is in them soon converts the young barbarians 
into earnest, self-respeeting disciples. 

"The effects of the honor system on the University life have already, 
in part, been indicated. Not only has the problem of securing honesty in 
the examinations been solved, but, incidentally, many other problems of 
student government. The spirit of truth and honor fostered in the ex- 
amination room has gradually pervaded the entire life of the institution. 
It has awakened the conscience of the student body, and developed a pub- 
lic opinion that exercises a wholesome and potent influence on student 
thought, manners, and deportment. And, best of all, the spirit of the 
system does not die with eoUege days, but follows the graduate into the 
greater world outside. 

"That the honor system, as it exists at the University of Virginia, is 
a genuine and a practical thing, and that it has wrought the results that 
I have endeavored to present to you, and more, is not, and has not been 
within the past half century, a debatable question among members of the 
faculty, nor among the undergraduates, nor the thousands of graduates 
distributed the nation over; nor among the informed public at large. 
These with one voice bear the same testimony in its behalf. It is no 
longer a theory but a condition. . . . 

"Objection has been made that the honor system compels or encour- 
ages one student to report the delinquencies of his fellows. Such objec- 
tion should have little force with members of a bar association, under 
whose code of ethics the duty rests upon every member to bring to the 
notice of the court instances of unprofessional conduct on the part of 
his brothers of the bar, that they may be weeded out from the profession 
they have disgraced. In the same manner social clubs, religious bodies, 
literary and scientific organizations, financial exchanges — indeed all human 
organizations in which the moral character of the individual is important 



4&'4 HONOR SYSTEM 

in determining his fitness as a member — protect themselves against un- 
worthy associates. 

"In the honor system there is no compulsion, other than that exerted 
by one's own sense of duty. . . . Nor, until a student has by his 
conduct given cause for suspicion, is there the slightest espionage upon 
his movements, by his fellows. The atmosphere is not one of distrust 
and suspicion, but precisely the reverse. The system demands and secures 
not only faculty trust in the student's integrity, but the confidence) of his 
fellows as well. . . . 

"I hold no brief for the adoption of the honor system in law schools 
now strangers to it. Its attempted introduction into new territory to 
which the system would come as a suspected exotic,> would doubtless meet 
with many discouragements at the beginning. There are probably law 
schools where, from local conditions, the effort might be of doubtful ex- 
pediency. But surely we are all on common ground, in the conviction 
that every law student should learn, from the beginning of his profes- 
sional studies, if no earlier, that, as an apprentice to a noble profession, 
he should cultivate and practice the same principles of fair dealing in 
his college relations that he will be expected afterwards to exhibit in his 
professional relations. If we, as law teachers, are to deal lightly with 
deception and dishonesty in the examination room, or out of it, and to 
excuse these offenses as necessary or customary evils) of college life, when, 
may I ask, shall our complaisance cease, and when shall our virtuous in- 
dignation at dishonesty begin? May the future lawyer cheat his way into 
the college and out of it — into and through the law school, repeat the 
offense on his examination for admission to the bar, and then suddenly 
develop into the clean, high practitioner — ^the honest guardian of his 
clients' interests and the faithful servitor in the courts of his country? 
Is the practice of the law, with all the temptations it presents, a better 
school for training one's ethical sense, than the study of the law under 
teachers selected as well for their high character as for their learning? 
These questions are left to your consideration. 

"If the evils suggested do exist, in greater or less degree, this refer- 
ence to them would be gratuitous were no remedy suggested. . . . 
Such is my faith in any body of youth possessing the courage and am- 
bition to undertake the severe regimen requisite to a legal education, 
that I do not doubt that, left to their own devices, they would them- 
selves evolve some such system as I have described, by whatever name 
it might be called. The essential conditions would be the abolition of 



HONOR SYSTEM 485 

all espionage by the faculty or its deputies and the grading of every 
paper according to its face value. . . . The new-found liberty might 
be abused; the value of the degree might be temporarily sacrificed; but 
the result would be well worth the cost. In a peculiarly hostile environ- 
ment such discouraging conditions might continue long enough to exhaust 
the patience and disappoint the hopes of the authorities. But if the 
latter show the proper courage and consistency — not for a moment waver- 
ing in the experiment — the instinct of self-protection among the better 
class of students would eventually solve the problem. The better ele- 
ment — always in the ascendency — ^would tire of the spectacle of unde- 
served honors won by unfair means and of degree conferred on wretched 
swindlers. . . . From the conflict would be evolved a system of law 
and order and decency enforced by the students themselves — a system 
more effective than could be attained by an army of monitors. 

"In brief, gentlemen of the Association, the honor system, or some 
similar system, is the logical and imperative outcome of absolute trust 
of the student body — of regarding college students as men and not chil- 
dren. . . . Neither this system, nor any similar one, can survive on 
half-hearted trust. Where the confidence is unreserved, it cannot die. In 
such a system the result is both objective and subjective. The student 
responds to the confidence reposed, by keeping faith with the faculty 
and with his fellows, — and himself learns the invaluable lesson of using 
liberty without license. On this principle our forefathers founded this 
great republic. I present it to you as the true principle of government 
for the smaller republic of whose destinies you are the guardians. There 
can be no real virtue where there is no opportunity for vice. Remove 
freedom of choice between good and evil, and character ceases to develop. 
No morality was ever created by legislative ordinances, nor preserved by 
police supervision." 

From an address, April, 1913, at the annual meeting of the 
New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools 
by W. S. A. Pott, B. A., 1912, University of Virginia, in April 
1913 a brilliant graduate student there, now a professor in St. 
John's University, Shanghai, China: 

"What security, then, can we offer that our pledges are strictly ob- 
served ? 

"The first safeguard rests on the empirical principle that to trust a 



486 HONOR SYSTEM 

man is to make a man worthy of your trust. The generally friendly 
terms on which professor and student stand at Virginia are perhaps the 
result of the assumption on the part of both, at the very outset, that 
each is man and gentleman, and this mutual relation of trust and friend- 
ship, in my mind, is one of the chief guarantees of our honor system. 
. . . I know that 'cribbing' is felt by some to be, if not justifiable, 
yet a venial offense when the processor or certain other agents are pres- 
ent for the specific purpose of espionage; and therefore, the whole ques- 
tion is narrowed down to a mere contest of vigilance, in which the side 
that has the majority usually wins. But be that as it may, suffice it to 
say that the honor system and the open and amicable relations between 
faculty and students at Virginia are two things so inextricably connected 
and reciprocally related, that it is impossible really to discover which is 
cause and which is effect; and this relation prevents any practices in the 
class room different from those employed in a larger sphere. . . . 

'•'Our second safeguard rests in the fact that any offender of the honor 
code, when detected by another student, is reported by that student. Now 
this very fact that one student should report another is generally the 
storm center around which a discussion of the honor system is waged. 
Some feel that student-reporting is certainly an ignoble means for insur- 
ing the successful operation of a system, however meritorious and laud- 
able that system may be in itself. However, all this dispute seems to me 
to arise from the failure to obtain a correct idea of what tale-bearing 
really is. Tale-bearing, or 'squealing,' is a word that should be used to 
designate the reporting of a strictly personal or man-to-man affair. 
. , . We do not consider testifying against a cheat as tale-bearing. 
Viewed in its full aspect and context, student reporting of cases of dis- 
honesty, so far from being condemned as an opprobrious act, is consid- 
ered as an absolute duty, and therefore a meritorious act. . . . 

"I would not have you think that the honor system is such an un- 
elastic, narrow, and stereotyped thing as to be confined only to the class 
room. In athletics it is prominent. . . . Since the eligibility rules 
were made, there has never been a case of an athlete signing the eligi- 
bility pledge falsely. To cite another instance of the comprehensiveness 
of the system, although it may sound strange to you when I say it, the 
honor committee takes charge of any form of dishonesty in gambling, 
whether it be actual cheating or the writing of bogus checks. However 
much the students may frown upon gambling, they lead no active crusade 
against gambling as such, but only against dishonesty in gambling. . . . 



HONOR SYSTEM 487 

"Few and infrequent as honor violations are with us, they neverthe- 
less occur, and I must tell you how we deal with such breaches. We 
have nothing at Virginia that corresponds exactly with your class divi- 
sions. Our divisions are only into departments, such as the college, the 
department of graduate studies, and the departments of medicine, law, 
and engineering. Each department has its officers, and the five presidents 
of the several departments, together with the vice-president of the de- 
partment of which the accused is a member, constitute the honor com- 
mittee. If any student is suspected of cheating and there is sufficient evi- 
dence for a prima facie case, the accused is summoned to explain himself. 
He may, or may not, remain in college long enough to be asked to ap- 
pear before the committee, for he is usually warned and advised by those 
who detected him to depart immediately from the university. But if he 
does appear and fails to explain himself, he is simply asked to leave, and 
he does so on the very next train. There is no case on record in which 
a convicted student has failed to comply with the request of the honor 
committee. The accused, however, on being asked to clear himself may 
demand a regular trial, either public or private. So far as I know, there 
have been but two public trials in Virginia, both, as I understand, solemn 
and heart-rending occasions. At one of these the accused was convicted 
and dismissed, while at the other the accused was acquitted, being found 
guilty only of indiscretion. But the verdict of the jury sitting at a pub- 
lic trial is obyed as promptly as the request of the honor committee sit- 
ting in private. All this, you see, is quite simple, and the chief thing to 
be noted is that the students themselves have absolute control in the ad- 
ministration of the honor system. It is regarded by them as their dear- 
est possession; the center of gravity, so to speak, is shifted from the 
faculty to the student body, which is entrusted with and has complete 
authority over what it considers a priceless heritage. 

"It may be thought by some that the summary punishment that is 
meted out to any ofl'ender of the honor code is not altogether deserved in 
the case of those who fall through ignorance. It is impossible to make 
any distinctions or to recognize any such excuses, for the honor system 
itself is at stake as soon as it starts to make exceptions. Nevertheless, 
for those who are not familiar with the honor system before they enter, 
ample opportunity is afforded to become acquainted with the system. It 
is explained by the older men to all new students at a sort of mass meet- 
ing on the first Monday night after the opening of the session. With this 
and with living in an atmosphere that is permeated with the spirit of 



48 8 HON-QR SYSTEM 

students' honor, any offense that may occur is considered unpardonable 
and treated as such. . . . 

"It must not be supposed that the observance of the honor code is or 
should be synonymous, or co-extensive, ^vith perfect or ideal conduct. It 
must not be supposed that an honor system is a panacea or antidote for 
all the different attacks of moral illness that a student body suffers. 
. . . There are certain unreasonable extremists among ourselves who 
would like drunkenness to be considered as a violation of the honor sys- 
tem, and worthy of the capital punishment of expulsion in disgrace and 
dishonor. But to use a homely simile, just as rubber stretched too much 
loses its quality of elasticity, so I am sure that such a radical and far- 
fetched conception of the just limits of the honor code would be destined 
to work disaster. Our system is as elastic as such a system could be, 
and any attempt to render it more so would be wrong, unwise, and a 
total failure. Of such an offense as drunkenness the faculty assumes con- 
trol, and if it be the first time that the student is arraigned on such a 
charge, he is usually allowed to sign his name to a pledge of total ab- 
stinence so long as he remains a student of the University of Virginia. 
But it is to be carefully noted that, should the pledge be broken, the 
thing ceases to be a faculty affair and becomes a student affair. In 
other words, the students and the honor committee have no authority 
over such matters as drunken conduct, but they have complete authority 
in all matters involving a breach of good faith. . . . The honor sys- 
tem comes into play only where there is a promise made and broken, or 
some other form of dishonesty has appeared, and to extend its jurisdic- 
tion any further would be, if nothing else, a misnomer. I do not wish 
to appear to be mounting the pulpit, but I am sure you can respect a 
man who has forgotten, momentarily, that 'there is a just measure in all 
things,' and cannot respect one who has lied to you. . . . Do not 
think that I am condoning drunkenness, or any other such fault, or that 
the faculty fails to detect and deal promptly with a drunkard. But in 
such cases we feel that for a student to take any action other than that 
of counsel and persuasion is to infringe on another's personality." 

Upon the point of severity, Professor Thornton in the address 
already quoted, says: 

"Stem, swift, and implacable as is the code of the Honour System, it 
it not vindictive. Its aim is to teach virtue, not to take vengreance for 



HONOR SYSTEM 489 

wrong. Its purpose is preventive not retributive. . . . Like a wise 
and tender mother the University salutes each alumnus, . . . 
'If you were bom to honor, show it now, 
If put upon you, make the judgment good 
That thought you worthy of it.' . . . 
Thus it is that both by tender appeal and by terrible example the Uni- 
versity would teach the noblest of all her lessons. Is the fate of the 
offender tragical, his punishment greater than he can bear? Think what 
might be seen, if we could uncover the inmost soul of some youth who 
has left college crowned with stolen laurels; of the horrible scars and 
the festering ulcers, hidden but forever burning; of the fatal and pro- 
gressive degradation of the spirit that could wear with outward pride 
that perpetual badge of inward infamy. So it is that we are led back 
to our starting point and ask again how the cardinal points of true man- 
liness are to be conserved, how the eternal foundations of our Honour 
System and of all honour systems must he established and guarded, how 
Courage and Truthfulness and Loyalty and Magnanimity can best be im- 
planted in the ingenuous youth. . . . Happy the school in which great 
teachers hand down a noble and inspiring tradition — where 'nobleness 
enkindleth nobleness.' " 

In another address delivered in 1906 before the Association of 
Preparatory Schools and Colleges in the Southern States, he said: 

"The very appearance of watching the conduct of individual students 
is avoided. It is felt that the jealous self-respect of the student-body 
furnishes the best guarantee of honesty. Some of us habitually speak In 
a simple but earnest way to the first year classes at one of the closing 
lectures of the Fall Term on the attitude of the University towards its 
students in general and particularly as to the examinations, and strive 
to impress upon them by affectionate admonition the genuineness of our 
trust in them and the reciprocal duty resting on them of a fastidious 
rectitude of action. But these admonitions seem even to us almost need- 
less. ... As I look back over the thirty years of my professorship, 
I cannot recall that any one of my students ever answered me falsely or 
even disingenuously as to his work or any other topic; or met me on 
any ground other than that of openness and veracity. During eight years 
of service in the Chairman's oflBce, when the discipline of all students 
of the University was in my hands, but one man ever told me a lie, and 



490 HONOR SYSTEM 

he came back the next morning and confessed the truth, although the 
truth ensured his dismissal from the University. These experiences and 
others like them force us to believe in the Honour System and constrain 
us to commend it to others. ... Of all disciplines, it is the best to 
make men. . . 

''In discussing it with Northern teachers I have found them often 
shocked by its aspect of relentless severity. ... To the students of 
Virginia the case wears a different aspect. They condemn and punish 
not the fraud, but the lie — a lie cold-blooded, selfish, and murderous to 
the common good-fame. The offender signs the lie deliberately. Before 
the fault was committed he knew he must sign the lie. And he signs it 
not [only] as an individual, but as the member of a class whose honor 
is in his custody; as an alumnus of a college whose fair repute is prosti- 
tuted to his selfish ends. . . . 

"It is from this point of view that we must judge what seems to the 
careless observer the student's capricious application of the Honour Sys- 
tem. . . . We cannot change their code if we would, and for my part 
I should doubt the wisdom of a change. The student does not analyze 
his convictions. He feels them, and by a true and just instinct sets apart 
from other human frailties those sins which destroy confidence in the 
sinner's inward soundness of nature. If the foundations of character are 
destroyed then the toppling superstructire of reputation must go like- 
wise. . . . 

"Not only with the faculty, but with the students themselves, the 
prevalent belief is that the examinations are absolutely honest. The fact 
that at rare intervals some pitiful cerature — usually a man strange to 
the traditions and ideals of the place — ^yields to temptation, cheats and 
is detected, adds to our confidence in the prevalent rectitude. When every 
man strives to avoid the very appearance of evil, the actions of such a 
student soon bring him under suspicion. We believe that such men are 
almost invariably first suspected, then detected, then expelled. . . . 

"To think of the Honour System as a mere artifice for securing hon- 
esty in the examination room, as an automatic machine for replacing so 
many keen-eyed proctors, is to miss the heart of the whole thing. . . . 
To be effectual it must be conceived as a vital principle, exalting to 
nobler ends and purer aims all the incarnations of the academic life. It 
ought to afi'ect and it will affect the outlook of the student-mind upon 
all questions of conduct and of duty. He is brought under its constrain- 
ing force at an age when the sanctions of religious rearing often begin 



QUESTION OF INSTITUTING AN HONOR SYSTEM 491 

to lose their power; when the fresh new world of freedom and of joy 
allures him with manifold temptations; when the nascent powers of 
virility produce in body and brain and heart the riotous springtide of 
youth and hope. Shall we account it a small thing if at this fateful 
moment we possess a discipline which helps to keep him straight and 
clean; which tells him in accents he can but heed that to be brave and 
loyal and true is man's peculiar virtue; which bids him embrace failure 
rather than stoop to fraud; which teaches him to despise an undeserved 
success and condemn an unmerited reward? . . . 

"Nor do I need to say to this audience that the University of Virginia 
claims no monopoly of this system and asserts no rights of prior discov- 
ery in the spirit of honour. We are, I fear, suspected by some of a sort 
of arrogance in such matters. We are sometimes told of schools where 
the equivalent of this system existed from the day when the first founda- 
tion-stone was laid, and so told that we might well feel ashamed of our 
own difficulties. It was not so in Virginia. ... It was an exotic, 
planted in faith and love, tended with carefulness, guarded with prayers, 
watered with tears and at least once with blood, coming slowly to ma- 
turity. ... In the day of our adversity it was our chief support. In 
the time of our prosperity may it not depart from us." 

If a genuine honor code be indeed a living force in any college, 
it would be atrocious to surrender it to the destroying interference 
of men incapable of understanding it, who are everywhere and 
always contriving for the enforcement of fragmentary ideas and 
ready to misuse any instrument on which they can lay hands. Or, 
if an honor system appears to be arising spontaneously among the 
students of any college, there is a fair prospect of its winning 
its way among the young men, provided every faculty member who 
approves the principle will co-operate cordially and will firmly 
protect its incipiency from the blighting influence of colleagues 
who believe that if a man cheats in one attempt to get a degree 
he ought to be permitted to take it in a second attempt. But the 
wise course is not so plain if the issue arises, whether or not a 
faculty should try to institute such a system by inviting the stu- 
dents to enforce a sacred keeping of pledges for fair dealing: the 



492 TWO QUESTIONS 

government and control of such affairs may be honorable and effi- 
cient, and yet entirely in the hands of the faculty; cheating need 
not be in vogne simply because the faculty detects and punishes 
dishonesty, instead of the students. 

In the case last supposed two principal questions should be 
decided affirmativel}^, or the matter dropped for the time being: 

(1) Is the main part of the student body willing to enforce 
honesty in all tests of scholastic attainments, by calmly inflicting 
one sure penalty for cheating or stealing of any sort? This may 
be doubtful in some enormous modern university, especially if co- 
educational. In some state universities more than a thousand raw 
students of both sexes pour in each year, the number of freshmen 
exceeding the number of all other classes combined. Even in such 
a ease my faith in the young leads me to believe that the honor 
system would not be impossible, provided the faculty is all that 
it might be if selected and organized on right principles; but — 

(2) Will the chief executive and the faculty live up to their 
side of the responsibility, that is, do they truly wish cheats to be 
expelled? This is the paramount practical question; and it in- 
volves a moral question on which no one should take his stand 
arrogantly or without justifying the faith that is in him. 

If both of these questions are answered affirmatively, then I 
believe the honor system may be successfully instituted. From 
the very beginning there would probably be less dishonesty than 
before, and the efficiency and beneficent influence of the code 
would grow naturally — if the system is kept free from foolish pro- 
cedures and never prostituted to alien purposes. At the outset 
the great danger would lie in the way of mistaken procedure. For 
instance, in a heterogeneous mass of students, many of them 
strangers to the idea of an inviolable code of honor, some detected 
cheats would at first demand ^'public" trials. If their crude idea 
of publicity be adopted and the trials made grossly public, they 



THE CHIEF DANGER 493 

will become revolting in decencies and the last state of that house 
shall be worse tlian the first. Or, if argument is ever permitted 
about anything except questions of fact, the system will break 
down. Never attempt an honor system unless you know what it 
is and how to conduct it, especially unless the one penalty for its 
violation is settled in advance. To entertain pleas for "mercy," 
or to allow argument against the justice of the penalty will in- 
evitably turn the system into a travesty. Hysterical uncertainties 
would take the place of kind but steadfast action. The court of 
honor, if in the least worthy of its jurisdiction, is merciful al- 
ready; it does not need to hear such pleas; it does not sit in 
judgment of the heart (in the sense in which men ought not to 
judge their brethren) ; it is not punishing the wrongdoer, but 
protecting a vital principle; it is indeed but a jury to determine 
a question of fact under an established law — ^'We will have no 
cheating among us and he who cheats must leave us." Thus ad- 
ministered* the honor system will quickly become efficient; rarely 
will a detected cheater wish for any trial; almost uniformly he 
will admit his guilt and quietly withdraw. 

But rectitude of any sort requires constant vigilance. The chief 
danger to an established honor system lies in the attempts to 
apply its wonderful force to incongruous objects, which are sure 
to be made by some unphilosophical minds or raw characters. If 



*"No honor code can stand the test of time and experience without a 
drastic penalty for its violation, and this penalty must be uniformly, 
impartially, and impersonally administered. It is a distressing and heart- 
rending thing that a man should be expelled by his fellows for cheating 
in an examination, thus violating his honor pledge. But if the principle 
is to maintain, this must be done and it should be made known publicly 
in college that the thing has occurred and the identified man has been 
dismissed. ... It will not do as the body of students increases and 
thus becomes more unwieldy to let down the bars and mitigate the punish- 
ment of this offense by suppressing the fact." — From an. address on ''The 
Eleventh Commandment" by Professor W. H. Echols before St. Paul's 
Club, published in the University of Virginia Alumni Bulletin, April, 
1914, which might be republished very profitably in every college journal. 



494 THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION 

a group sets up one forbidden thing — makes one commandment, 
its decree may enforce itself almost absolutely, without machinery, 
through inviolable custom. But if a group attempts to dictate 
about many things, all of them will be more or less evaded and 
resisted and none of them can be enforced without powerful ma- 
chinery for compulsion — courts kept busy and every court with 
its sheriff. It is worse, also, than a misnomer to put miscella- 
neous regulations under a would-be code of honor; and worse than 
folly to imagine that honorable young men will summon to judg- 
ment and visit punishment upon fellows who have, say, slipped 
out of town without permission, or broken such rules as those 
quoted in the preceding section on fraternities and dormitories. 

It remains to consider the fundamental question: Is it right 
and desirable that every young man who cheats knowing that he 
will sign a statement on honor that he has stood the test fairly, 
should be inflexibly excluded from the college? All sincere men 
do not judge this question alike. Objections reduce to two. One, 
at bottom, is the opinion that the college ought to be, and should 
seize every opportunity to be, a reformatory. This will be re- 
spectfully considered. In the other objection it is said that the 
disgrace of expulsion is a punishment too severe. 

The true disgrace inheres in being convicted of deliberate dis- 
honesty, not in being required to leave the injured social group. 
In respect to punishment, the pain (whether thought of as puni- 
tive or expiatory) of remaining where the shame is known to all, 
as if branded on his brow, would be greater for a man in whom 
is left any grace at all, then the pain to be suffered out in the 
wider world; as for the pangs of conscience, for a genuine repent- 
ant they would be the same in either sphei'e: "Patria quis exsul 
se quoque fugitf In the honor system the simple purpose is 
to keep the group clean and above suspicion in the matter taken 
under its jurisdiction: all presumptuous judgment of the inner 
soul of the offender, or about fitting punishment to individual 



THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION 495 

turpitude, is far from it ; expulsion from the group is not designed 
as a punishment to fit the offender, but as the only dignified and 
safe way to accomplish the purpose. There is scarcely need to 
add the argumentum ad hominem, that those who advance this 
objection are commonly advocates and ruthless perpetrators of the 
practices described in the preceding chapter, under which dutiful 
students are ejected if they fail to ^^pass^' in half of their courses 
at their first attempt.* 

The opinion that the college ought to be a reformatory is the 
crucial objection to the policy of excluding every young man who 
cheats and declares on honor that he has stood the test fairly. 
The objection appeals to a generous sentiment and sound moral 
principle; but the questions remain whether this application of 
the principle is harmonious with other obligations, and whether 
it is really expedient for true reformation. We need, therefore, 
to consider both the effect on others and the effect on the wrong- 
doer^ if it be proposed that students who cheat and solemnly lie 
about it (in examinations, in certificates of eligibility for athletic 
contests, etc.), or who deliberately steal, should be reinstated as 
eligible for all the honors and certifications conferred by a uni- 
versity. The effect on the student body, year after year, seems 
too plain to need argument : fewer will yield to temptation if it 
is understood that the college and its certificates are to be kept 



*I happened to hear to-day (months after the words above were writ- 
ten) a recent graduate of a state university depict the hard fate of a 
friend who had been sent home to a rural community as incapable of con- 
tinuing the studies he had essayed. I cannot myself testify to any es- 
pecially heartrending consequences, because in the cases within my im- 
mediate knowledge the youths were not at the mercy of such a popular 
estimation of their abilities; but I have in late years known several stu- 
dents to be dismissed as unfit to continue efforts for a university edu- 
cation, because of failures to pass, who were palpably superior both in- 
tellectually and morally to some of the men and women who voted for 
the arbitrary rules which ejected them. Cf. pp. 333-; 335-; 341- ; 345-; 
348-352: etc. 



496 CO-EDUCATION 

above such suspicion. But I will not press this argument un- 
duly; for I am of those who would do individual justice with all 
kindness and proper mercy, leaving distant effects to the moral 
order and divine governance of the universe. Is it a right way 
to reform one who has fallen into a heinous fault, to let him say 
he is sorry and then go on without forfeiture of external oppor- 
tunity and preferment? Would not a true repentant step aside 
of his own accord to save the group from suspicion and to keep 
the certificates of the institution above reproach? A college de- 
gree is not needed for the reconstruction of an honorable char- 
acter and life Character is rehabilitated only by repentance and 
acts bringing forth fruits meet therefor. To man does indeed 
belong the power to co-operate with divine grace in undoing his 
wrong deeds, thus reversing the wheels of life and restoring him- 
self to a lost harmony with his own spirit and with the world of 
just minds. (This is not a dogmatic statement, but the philo- 
sophical truth that underlies any germane dogma.) But this 
wonderful remedial efficacy of repentance is missed by all who 
fail to see, or who forget, the balancing consideration which alone 
can restrain from riotous abuses. The balancing consideration is 
to recognize that repentance is a work, a process, and that its 
reconstruction is not wrought in a moment. The consequences of 
wrong presumptions in this matter are familiar to all who have 
observed the backslidings of flippant, and the impudent roles as- 
sumed by over-sanguine (and sometimes hypocritical) repentants. 
In the moral universe repentance does wipe out wrong and restore 
dignity; but sincerity '^^oes scftly^^ while the inner wound of the 
conscience is being healed. 

Co-education. 

Some years after the opening of Cornell University the question 
of admitting women was raised by Mr. Sage's proposal, in 1872, 



ONE DISAPPOINTMENT 



497 



to endow a building for women. After much discussion co-educa- 
tion was adopted. Sage College — not a separate college like Ead- 
cliff or Barnard, but a residential hall for women — holds a secret. 
The shrewd old founder of the university favored equal oppor- 
tunities for wom.en ; but he had his doubts about co-education, and 
he wrote them in a letter which he placed in the cornerstone of 
this residential hall for women. Mr. E. E. Slosson says, 'Tie did 
not think it would fail, but if it did he knew why it would, and 
he wanted posterity to know that he knew it." Mr. Slosson ad- 
vocates so-education throughout his book, but his comment at this 
point continues: 

"I wonder if any of the Sage girls have keen kept awake by curiosity 
to know what is in that letter. I have. . . . The chances are that 
it is something that experience has proved quite illusory, like most of 
the fears and not a few of the hopes enumerated in the Report of the 
Committee on Mr. Sage's Proposal. . . . One of the benefits which 
President White looked for ... is so far from having been attained 
that I must give his own words: 

" 'Among the curiosities of recent civilization perhaps the most absurd 
is the vast tax laid upon all nations at a whim of a knot of the least 
respectable women in the most debauched capital in the world. . . . 
Young men in vast numbers, especially in our cities and large towns, 
are harnessed to work as otherwise they would not be, their best aspira- 
tions thwarted, their noblest ambitions sacrificed, to enable the partners 
of their joys and sorrow to vie with each other in reproducing the last 
grotesque absurdity issued from the precincts of Notre Dame de Lorette, 
or to satisfy caprices not less ignoble. The main hope for the abatement 
of this nuisance, which is fast assuming the proportions of a curse, is 
not in any church, for, despite the pleadings of the most devoted pastors, 
the church edifices are the chosen theaters of this display; it would seem 
ralher to be the infusion, by a more worthy education, of ideas whch 
would enable women to weld religion, morality, and common sense against 
this burdensome perversion of her love for the beautiful. This would not 
be to lower the sense of beauty and appropriateness in costume; thereby 
would come an esthetic sense which would lift our best women into a 
sphere of beauty where the Parisian grotesque would not be tolerated; 



498 CO-EDUCATIOlSr 

thereby, too, would come, if at all, the strength of character which would 
cause woman to cultivate her own taste for simple beauty in form and 
color, and to rely on that, rather than on the latest whim of any foolish 
woman who happens to be not yet driven out of the Tuilleries or th« 
Breda quarter/ 

"I refer to the debating societies of Sage Coiiege the question why ed- 
ucated women as a class have in this particular completely failed to 
justify the confidence which President White placed in them. . . . The 
financial burden which was then 'fast assuming the proportions of a 
curse,' has enormously increased. We cannot to-day share President 
White's hope for relief through the women's colleges. . . . Even the 
specific training in this department which has been recently introduced 
seems inclined to intensify the evil rather than to remedy it. . . . 
In Teachers College of Columbia University there is a thriving depart- 
ment. I visited the exhibition of the best work of the advanced students 
last commencement [1910], and I must say that I saw there more gro- 
tesque, ugly, and ungainly hats than I have ever seen at large on the 
streets of New York." 

All tMs may be intereRting, but it is not significant; because 
Andrew D. "Wliite, with all bis wisdom and experience, forgot that 
the colleges are by no means a dominant factor in forming the 
mores of a people ; and the comments on the disappointment of his 
hope bear rather on the selection of professors and the consequent 
matter and manner of teaching than on co-education. The min- 
gling of both sexes in classes for instruction and in collegiate 
intercourse is a question that should be judged on the broadest 
grounds. 

The thoroughgoing co-education of the sexes developed in the 
United States of America has always been a remarkable phe- 
nomenon to observers capable of a comprehensive view of the 
societal beliefs and practices of mankind; but it is only recently 
that critical discussion of the practice would be tolerated without 
resentment against the speaker. Indications are now observable 
that the masses have found in their own unreflective experience 



CO-EDUCATION 499 

grouii'ds of doubt. The data for a rational opinion lie in a dis- 
jointed way ready to hand; but, if they have ever been assembled 
in one summary view and consideration, I am not aware of it. 
Pedagogy has talked volubly upon the subject; physiology and 
psychology, particularly in studies of adolescence, have had much 
to say; and sociolog}^ and anthropolog}'^ contribute matter of fun- 
damental import, which has not been applied at all, or only inci- 
dentally to the question of co-education. Originality (even in 
phraseology) is here repudiated. I shall not pause to make direct 
quotations and cite authorities; but expanded explanation and full 
confirmation may be found in the separate literatures of the sci- 
ences involved of all statements 1 shall make concerning peda- 
gogic experience, physiological and psychological data, and the 
folkways of any society. The contribution to clear thinking here 
attempted is the assemblage, for mutual illumination, of data 
which must be held all in one view for a valid consideration of the 
subject. 

The first point of essential importance is a right understand- 
ing of the societal facts which you wish at least to criticise, and 
perhaps dream of modifying in accordance with easily accom- 
plished purposes, provided only that you form a decided opinion 
in 3'our own minds. If, however, the true nature of the facts is- 
understood, one finds himself in the attitude of a powerless ob- 
server, and the pose of the puissant reformer necessarily collapses. 
Enlightenment in any such matter brings that change of attitude 
as inevitably as knowledge of the forces that determine the weather 
abolishes the pose of the "medicine man" in his incantations for 
rain or sunshine. The greatest obstacle to improvements which 
do really lie within the power of the critical reflection and altru- 
istic effort of those who can think and have strong altruistic mo- 
tives, is the prevailing ignorance, even in the select persons wha 
have that power and those motives, of the true nature of societal 



500 CO-EDUCATIOX 

facts and forces and how the folkAvays and mores arise, persist, 
and change. 

Slowly are mass prejudices wrenched from the mind, and never 
except through social experiences, which operate like great proc- 
esses of nature, and are not more (though not less) amenable to 
individual effort than climatic changes. In each case man can 
do a little, and is responsible for the little he can do. Little by 
little he can irrigate, plant trees, and cultivate the soil until a 
climate is modified; and little by little he can engender temper- 
ance, honesty, and courage until the manners and morals of a 
people have been changed. But the clouds of heaven are little 
less immediately influenced by the accidental dictum of a political 
majority or the laws or resolutions of a legislature or a debating 
society, than are the societal practices and beliefs or even the mere 
folkways of a large group of mankind. It is solel}- from such a 
standpoint that our practice of co-education may be usefully con- 
sidered. 

In the society called The United States of America, co-educa- 
tion is established in our mores; and its universality furnishes 
unquestionable credentials that it is the way the people deem the 
right way. They may alter that opinion, but no man nor hun- 
dred men could by mere argument perceptibly hasten or retard 
a change. Such an event, when it happens, comes to pass as the 
wind blows — when it listeth, and, I might almost add, no man 
knoweth how or why. Only a few scientific meteorologists in the 
one case, and still fewer scientific sociologists in the other could 
explain the events. 

Folkways are the habits and customs in a society that have 
won authority and regulate succeeding generations. As certain 
folkways become involved with judgments about welfare and right 
living they are raised to a higher plane. Such folkways are 
called mores. All folkways develop unconsciously. [NTever were 



MORES 501 

they foreseen or intended. They may be modified only very 
slightly by designed effort. They are transformed or decline 
and become extinct for causes comparable with those by which 
the vital organisms whose fossil rem.ains are fonnd in the strata 
of bygone geological ages were transformed or became extinct. 
The folkways that have engendered or assimilated judgments or 
philosophies of right living and social welfare, and thus become 
mores, control social undertakings. The margin of freedom and 
voluntary variation differs for individuals, but the bulk of the 
thoughts and acts of the freest one of us are cast in the moulds 
of the mores into which he was born. Folkways always seem 
right to those who practice them; as for the mores, they are verit- 
able articles of faith as long as they flourish. 

The people are conservative, not with the conservatism of aris- 
tocracies, but as the bearers of the mores. They imitate, and 
accept leadership; but they do as they see fit. Whatever they 
take up they make a part of their mores, and then refuse to dis- 
card, and defend all in its new integrity. The chief reason for 
any large societal phenomenon is that it agrees with the mores. 
Historians and sociologists have always dimly and incidentally 
noticed this ; but it is recently coming to be understood as the 
main clue. Doctrinal teaching never suddenly modified the mores 
of any society. "It would be a great mistake,^^ says Professor 
W. G. Sumner (in whose work on the subject may be found proved 
and illustrated all that is here said about folkways), "to suppose 
that any people ever accepted and held philosophical or religious 
teaching as it was offered to them, and as we find it recorded 
in the books of the teachers. What the classes adopt, be it good 
or ill, may be found pervading the mass after generations, but it 
will appear as a resultant of all the vicissitudes of the folkways 
in the interval. . . . What the masses do Avith thoughts is 
that they rub them down into counters just as they take coins 



502 CO-EDUCATION 

from the mint and smooth them dov,ii by wear until they are only 
disks of metal." For instance, the masses misunderstood (and 
still misunderstand) that Darwin taught that "men are descended 
from monkeys." But if anyone wants to blame the masses let 
him turn to his own case. He will find that he understands only 
his own intellectual pursuits. In other matters he is one of the 
masses, and does as they do. 

It is a fallacy to suppose that "the people" have an inspiration 
by which they select the good out of all that thinkers offer. On 
the contrary, they are prone to be swept into mischief by false 
suggestion, and are therefore always an object of exploitation un- 
less organized under genuine leaders. Otherwise — the "machine" 
and the "boss," or the mob. Any popular agitation that calls for 
judgments (other than the choice of worthy leaders) in a matter 
not thoroughly comprehended, is a doubtful procedure, even 
though the end sought is desirable. "The great popular jury, 
which at last, by adoption or rejection, decides the fate of all 
proposed changes in the mores, needs stability and moderation." 
As for agitations that appeal to ever latent fanaticism, they are 
of all social evils the worst. The only limit to the fanaticism 
that might be excited is the fund of common sense and habit of 
calmness and moderation previous^ developed in the mores of 
the society. 

If what has been said can effectively suggest the right attitude 
toward the question of co-education and make clear the nature 
of the problem, these remarks have not been too long. 

Population, race, marriage, child-bearing, and the education of 
the young present to civilization its greatest issues and most un- 
fathomable mysteries. Current discussion of social interests deals 
mostly with questions about property, but it is the sex relation 
that presents the most serious problems. 

I may eliminate any question of opening the university in the 



CO-EDUCATION 



503 



European sense, that is post-graduate courses of American uni- 
versities, to men and women on the same terms. Women who 
choose to go into the fields of special scholarship should have 
access to institutions where such researches are prosecuted. We 
may waive, also, the question of co-education in elementary schools, 
especially if the eight years still commonly consumed in the ele- 
mentaiy school is to be reduced.* The subject may be thus lim- 
ited to co-education in the high school and during undergraduate 
studies in colleges. 

Whatever is in the mores always seems right to the overwhelm- 
ing majority, ^'Ninety-eight per cent,'' they say, ^'^of public high 
schools, and ninety-four per cent of all the pupils in all our sec- 
ondary schools are receiving their education where boys and girls 
meet on a common level. It must be the right way/' 

Collateral supports and superficial advantages of co-education 
are obvious. For instance, Ave all uphold woman's title to all 
opportunities for intellectual growi:h that the society can provide. 
That principle has become almost absolute in the mores of western 
peoples. One would be an outcast who advocated restraining 
woman from learning anything she craves to know, or cutting 
her off arbitrarily from any sort of instruction she seeks. It is 
partly because criticism of co-education is confused with such 
abominated attitudes that it has always elicited frantic resent- 
ment from militant associations of women and from the compliant 
men whom they dominate. Of course, no intelligent critic raises 
any such question. 

Economic conditions support, as they originated co-education; 
and it ought to be recognized that, if pecuniary limitations permit 
only one high school in a community, that school must be open 
to boys and girls. In such places the rule of necessity settles 
the question. 



*Se€ tfote on Elementary Schools, pp. 386-398. 



5'04 CO-EDUCATION 

In addition to the inevitable assent to mass opinion by the 
majority of teachers, there are many 'shop' reasons why teachers 
and school superintendents favor co-edncation. Discipline of the 
commonplace sort is easier. Greater power to control is required 
of a teacher of adolescent boys, or of a teacher of adolescent girls, 
than of a teacher of a mixed class. Eontine teaching of the com- 
monplace sort is, also, more satisfactory, by reason of a mutual 
stimulation to excel in the "marks," which are held up by teachers 
and regarded by pupils and parents as objects of desirable emu- 
lation; the boys (who do not drop out) seem more docile. To the 
majority of teachers these facts seem to settle the question. 

Some fallacious arguments have been used against co-education, 
and the demolishment of those arguments has been regarded as 
proof that all criticism must be captious. For instance, co-educa- 
tion has been objected to upon "moral" grounds, and the charge 
has been refuted, at least in the sense in which the word moral 
has been used in the debates referred to. Other critics have ar- 
gued that on account of physical and mental differences we injure 
the girl by feeding her intellectual rations provided for boys, fol- 
lowing with pleas for text-books and methods of teaching to cor- 
respond with, sex differences. The lack of sequence in the argu- 
ment of the advocates of female grammar, female algebra, female 
botany, etc., is easily exposed. The mere facts of physiological 
and mental differences no more logically require different subject- 
vinatter or different methods of instruction, than the same facts 
require different foodstuffs or different cooking. AVhether the con- 
clusion be right or wrong it does not follow from the argument. 
To me it appears that different subject-matter might proftably 
be chosen on account of limitations in time and for subsequent 
utility; but I am sure that if instruction is to be given in any 
science, the text-book and the method of teaching that present it 
in the most unified simplicity possible for the present stage of 



CO-EDUCATION 505 

human knowledge and with open admission of doubtful and un- 
known elements, are the best for every rational mind, whether 
male or female. 

Space does not permit further cataloging of fallacious objec- 
tions to co-education, or further statement of its advantages. The 
main points have been mentioned, including the paramount sup- 
port furnished by the hitherto satisfied experience of an entire 
people. As I have said, all mores arise without intention. For 
one reason or another something is done in a certain way by a 
few; if found to be convenient that way is imitated; if adopted 
widely, it becomes one of the things that ^^ever^^body does"; it is 
therefore right and not to be disputed. If a time comes when 
the people will barken to criticism, the custom is already dying 
or changing to a new type. 

Having pointed out the fallacies in some objections to co-educa- 
tion, and the main grounds for its existence, and its practical 
justification in some instances, some other objections that merit 
thoughtful attention m.ust be indicated. Such objections are 
based chiefly on vital organization and. social interests in the 
family. Of course, the alleged incompatibilities of co-education 
with such interests may be mistaken, — that is what we should 
try to decide without prejudice. 

From puberty on. normal boys and girls begin to differentiate 
rapidly in vital organization and in quality of soul. The dif- 
ference increases up to full maturity and is far greater in civili- 
zation than in savagery. Motherhood is a different matter from 
fatherhood. Ought adolescent girls, in order to mature aright, 
have mental and sentimental (as well as the physical) periods of 
instability, when they should not be required to repress instinctive 
feelings that prompt to withdrawal from the opposite sex? To 
students of nature, it appears that sex differentiation ought to be 
fostered to make women more womanly and men more manly. 



506 CO-EDUCATION 

instead of merging the diverse characteristics. That the mixed 
high school does interfere with an order and relations established 
througli long biotic processes and societal arrangements, is a fact. 
Whether the interference with nature and conflicting mores be 
for good or for evil may be questioned. 

Investigations by President Hall and others show that the 
ideals of high school girls are becoming increasingly masculine. 
If womanly ideals be in fact diminishing in power of appeal to 
girls, womanly character is threatened with disintegration. It 
does not seem suitable to the glory of womanhood, or with the 
interests of the race, that the ideals of girls should cease to be 
noble women. The investigators report: "The school girls in 
these censuses chose male ideals as if those of femininity were 
disintegrating"; and one of them concludes, "Unless there is a 
change of trend we shall soon have a female sex without a female 
character.^' The last oracular opinion is rather paradoxical, but 
it seems clear that a progressive change has been going on and 
is likely to continue as long as boys and girls in secondary schools 
are taught in mixed classes chiefly by female teachers. Again I 
say, the fact may be judged to be for good or for ill; but it 
should not be denied or evaded. 

Turning to the effects of co-education on boys, we have noted 
that ordinary school discipline is rendered easier by co-education. 
This one point carries the vote of present teachers for co-education. 
Undoubtedly each sex develops some of its best qualities in the 
presence of the other, and opportunity for such development 
should be offered; but the question remains: Are the relations 
in identical work and class rooms too prolonged, or not of a good 
kind? Will the boy forced to be too much with girls lose some- 
thing from the raw material of manhood? In high, schools the 
number of girls exceeds the number of boys, especially in the 



CO-EDUCATION 507 

upper classes, and in many of them the boys who remain are in 
a girls' school. 

Consideration may be due the boys because under prevalent 
methods of teaching the girls so much excel them. Especially 
does the gawky, inarticulate fellow deserve consideration. The 
girls discourage this boy. The teacher gets such satisfactory re- 
sults from the girls that she (to use the pronoun which has come 
in this country to be used in reference to the substantive teacher) 
allows the boys to drag along. She simply ^^marks them down.'' 
Especially if the boys have spent eight years in the elementary 
school and incipient beards have begun to grow, withdrawal fol- 
lows failure of "promotion." It is not derogatory either from 
womanhood or womankind to suggest a need of manly instruction 
for adolescent boys. 

It is not only the backward boy who is concerned. During 
adolescence girls are normally more precocious than boys of the 
same age. They surpass the boys in all studies in which recita- 
tion methods prevail. It is when text-books are laid aside and 
the students are thrown on their own resources that the best that 
is in the boys is evoked. But as the class seems to do so well 
under the usual routine, teachers are loth to change to methods 
of individual and critical investigation, which would be better for 
boys and girls. There is here indicated a reaction from co-educa- 
tion unfavorable to improvement in ways of teaching. 

Endless investigations into competitive school and college stand- 
ing of boys and girls and young men and young women have been 
made ; but would it not be better if the whole notion of intersexual 
competition during youth were eradicated? If girls grew to 
womanhood in womanly activities, and if boys plodded through 
their longer growth to manhood in toil and play mainly among 
boys and men, perhaps all would be better prepared both for the 
bormal complementary relations and for such competition during 



508 CO-EDUCATION 

maturity as economic exigencies or individual choice may call for. 
In any case, there should be no war of sex against sex, and by 
imagining that there is or ought to be one, some wonem have 
brought many hardships upon us all. 

Having presented the most obvious arguments for and against 
co-education, it might be advantageous to close at this point, with 
the statement that in my judgment the evidence is in favor of 
arrangements that will obviate the spirit and practice of direct 
competition between adolescent boys and girls and between young 
men and young women, wherever it is possible to do so without 
diminishing for either sex opportunities for the best education 
that the community can provide; adding the special counsel for 
the few high schools and colleges still not co-educational, that they 
hokl steadfastly to their conservative policy, at least until the 
^Tjoiling pof ^ of these times settles to some quietude and clearness. 

But I would not be treating you frankly if I did not submit one 
more connection of our far-reaching subject, namely, the bearing 
of co-education upon the family and marriage. I can give no con- 
clusion of my own judgment. The true bearings seem to me to 
be yet inscrutable. 

At the age of undergraduate studies in college the normal 
young woman has great strength to endure strain, if it be well 
timed, snd ripened self-knowledge, and maturity of intuitional 
judgments. During those years. Dr. Hall declares, she ought to be 
nearer to genius and more beautiful than she can ever be again. Be 
that as it may, statistics show that more women become mothers 
during those four years than during any other quadrennium of life, 
and with the least mortality in childbirth. The male youth of 
the same age is not even approximately as near to his maturity. 
The mating instincts of the young woman normally turn to men 
about five years older than herself. In short, the girl is ripe, the 
boy of equal age is not. She knows her male classmate better 



CO-EDUCATION 509 

than he knows himself; he seems to her crude; often unwed life 
comes to ^eem to her preferable. This he feels, and is humiliated 
by her superiority in most classroom exercises and in self-posses- 
sion. The young woman, because she notes how easily she com- 
petes with her callow classmates, readily turns to plans of self- 
support. She does not realize how much more male youths of 
her age will grow in mind and character long after she has ceased 
to do so, and how far stronger than her classmates she must find 
her real male competitors in life. This mistake has been a fre- 
quent tragedy in the lives of our highest spirited young women. 
On the side of the young men, I do not know how much co- 
education in college interferes with the instinct toward temporary 
celibacy which ought to rule the young man preparing for intel- 
lectual leadership. Some hold that such interference often leads 
to marriages which involve the handicapping or abandonment of 
well chosen careers. Others hold contrarily, that mutual dis- 
illusioning weakens the motives to marriage on both sides. The 
question is myriad sided. 

// you ivoidd attempt to predict about co-education, — change 
in the present popular judgment must be looked for in some con- 
flict which will arise, in mass experience, with some other deeper 
fixed and stronger custom. The mores change only by conflict one 
with another. 

It seems to me that unless the masses of our society find in un- 
argumentative experience practical conflict between co-education, 
and pair-marriage and the family as maintained thereby, co-edu- 
cation will continue to hold the approval it now holds unaffected 
by reflective criticism. 

The term pair-marriage is needed to designate the form of 
marriage which is as exclusive and permanent for the man as for 
the woman. It would be monogamy if a man had one wife in 
fact, although free to have more if he choose. Pair-marriage in 



510 CO-EDUCATION 

our mores has swept all other forms away. It has nourished f amilj^ 
pride and solidarity. It is the barrier against which all com- 
munistic collectivism breaks into foam and mist. Pair-marriage 
and the family are the strongholds of what the communistic social- 
ist calls the "individualistic vices.'^ Every such collectivist who 
can think must be willing to attack marriage and the family; he 
masks his batteries, because he does not dare openly to make that 
attack. But it would be a mistake to suppose that those who are 
now satisfied will alone control changes which the future may 
bring in the mores. It is n»ot difficult to make marriage such 
that men will refuse it. Women might also revolt. At present 
there is little care or pity for those who cannot adapt themselves 
or their circumstances to it. Divorce is allowed, but with proper 
vexation against those who use it. Our mores now require that 
man and woman should marry through love. Conjugal love de- 
mands great good sense and good nature in both husband and 
wife. These are hard exactions for the success of pair-marriage; 
it is no wonder that they are often wanting. Nevertheless, the 
ideal has been made an object of pathos, and whenever the aegis 
of pathos is put over a matter it is protected from severe examina- 
tion. "Pathos is unfavorable to truth/^ it has been said, because 
popular disapproval of truth-telling about the matter protected 
by pathos coerces individuals to hypocrisy. Special difficulties 
arise for specific modifications of the ideal. The old way pro- 
vided that one of the two wills involved in every marriage should 
yield to the other, and it was the woman's will that was bound 
by her own conscience to yield. Since that no longer seems rights 
the modern way too commonly involves endless dissension, or 
moral breakdown for one of the parties. The predominance of 
the mores concerning pair-marriage is indicated by the fact that 
the great words moral and immoral have been reduced in the 
mouths of the masses to mean what agrees with and what dis- 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 511 

agrees with the code of pair-marriage. In America no exception 
is tolerated. In Europe morganatic marriages for princes are 
still approved, which illustrates how no way of solving a life prob- 
lem provided in the mores is deemed wrong. No regulation could 
be instituted which would not bear hardly on some. Pair-mar- 
riage excludes a large part of the population. It assumes that 
every man and woman can find a mate, which is not true. Yet 
everything that violates the taboo in the mores is vice and is 
disastrous to all participants. The more real pair-marriage is 
among a people, the more disastrous is every illicit relation, the 
harm being infinitely greater to women than to men. Unmarried 
women, save the exceptionally good or talented, lead aimless lives, 
or are burdened by peculiar difficulties in earning independent 
livings. Such is the price paid for the gain gotten from pair- 
marriage. 

Inasmuch, then, as there does exist much need of supporting 
conditions favorable to happiness in pair-marriage, it may be in- 
ferred, if such happiness continues to be a fundamental desire 
in the hearts of the whole people, that any custom which appears 
in wide experience to be in any way inimical to that supreme wish 
will gradually fall under disapproval and will be ultimately trans- 
formed or abolished. The predominant mores will control. 

Concluding Bemarhs 

Imperfect as the reflections offered in this book must be, their 
purview has been wide and comprehensive. Each problem of the 
broad and important matter has been at least considered in its 
fundamental bearings and in its vital relations with all associated 
parts of the whole. The major portion of the composition has 
been performed during a time of sorrow and perplexity for the 
author, and indisposition also, in which the labor has been painful 
in itself and interfered with by conflicting demands on almost 
every moment. Cardinal Xewman said in reference to his dis- 



512 CONCLUDING REMARKS 

courses on a cognate subject : ''No anxiety, no effort of mind is 
more severe than his, who in a difficult matter has it seriously at 
heart to investigate without error and to instruct without obscur- 
ity: if the past discussion has at any time tried the patience of 
persons who have given it their attention, I can assure them that 
■on no one can it have inflicted so great labor and fatigue as on 
myself." But as the same noble spirit has elsewhere said, "there 
is room for only one true fear in man; that fear is that he may 
be wrong," and I have the supreme solace of believing that no 
grave or extensive error has been pursued. 

The last thirty years include a period of extraordinary expan- 
sion by the colleges and universities of this country in pecuniary 
resources and number of students. The immediate future ought 
to see the beginning of an era of intrinsic improvement and co- 
ordination. Improvement may be indicated by growth in size 
where it comes healthfully, but hypertrophy must not be mistaken 
for sound development; co-ordination of external relations is 
needed to some extent in some cases, but internal co-ordination 
(that is, right organization) is the vital need. 

The paramount requirement for the opening of an era of im- 
provement is a correct diagnosis of the main cause of the evident 
troubles, together with right ideals for amelioration. Wisdom may 
sometimes be found in a multitude of counsellors ; but even so, the 
differences are for correction or supplementation — for contrast, 
mot for "averaging." One diagnosis is correct, whether given in 
the counsel or not. The bad symptoms are evident; but to one 
.adviser of the ^^ig-headed" president, and to another the "pin- 
headed" regent is "the veritable black beast of the academic jungle.'^ 
They prescribe accordingly the abolishment of president or govern- 
ing boards. The diatribes to which the quoted epithets refer are 
naturally provoked by existing conditions, but neither view gives 
a diagnosis of a constitutional disorder, because big-heads and pin- 
heads, though troublesome entities, are details; they occur in such 
positions through erroneous selection ; they might occur under any 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 513 

constitutional arrangement. (See pages 2 and 3 and page 241.) 
It is the "academic jungle'^ itself that nedes to be made an orderly 
park, and then no beast will be black enough to affright or strong 
enough to destroy. 

Other advisers (mostly of the sort who always shrink from any- 
thing that anybody could possibly construe as personal criticism) 
attribute the great troubles to "rivalry" and "duplication/' and 
prescribe consolidation or a central board (with or without sub- 
ordinate boards), sometimes adding demands that the state legis- 
lature should prescribe or limit the rival curricula. This diagnosis 
is especially dangerous because laymen — including particularly the 
ordinary regent, legaislator, and governor — are apt to be satisfied 
with it. The specious diagnosis appeals to so much that is self- 
evident and the remedial prescription seems to follow so logically, 
that they are prone to imagine the difficulty has been solved. Every 
fact and every principle cited in this book points to a different 
diagnosis and to less off-hand remedies. Men undertake to arbi- 
trate this weighty problem who would scout the idea of takino^ the 
time to read a book or to listen to more than fragmentary talk on 
the subject. They demand "easy things to understand,'^ yet as- 
sume to decide thereby the most momentous issues. We can only 
appeal to the consciences of the men in places of power and re- 
sponsibilit}^ — not to accept, but — to hear and judge patient expo- 
sitions before they act. This would require all of their spare time 
for a week, perhaps for a month; but do they suppose they can 
understand a matter in which a nation has, confessedly, gone 
astray, with less attention? 

It may be well to add a concluding remark to refute a miscon- 
ception to which this book should not be liable, but which will prob- 
ably be advanced against it. Some persons may answer my counsel 
by asserting that I have "attacked" the institutions of higher edu- 
cation. I need only remind the candid reader that a scientific 
treatise on public hygiene must describe the effects and causes of 
disease, and that this is done not in contempt of good health but 



514 CONCLUDING REMARKS 

in appreciation thereof. Are overzealous patriots right when they 
feel resentment against an engineer who has advised that their 
city's supply of drinking water is dangerously polluted? Is not 
some neurosis indicated in a patient, or is he not at least morbidly 
egotistical, if he reviles the physician who tells him that his 
plumpness is caused not by sound adipose tissue but by dropsical 
accumulations? Arguments should, of course, stand on their 
merits and it is almost foolish to talk about the motives of their 
proponents. Universities and colleges have nothing to fear even 
from hostile criticism. They can be injured only by those of their 
own households, — except for disorganizing legislation, and in such 
cases the bad proposal has usually originated from within or the 
internal resistance has been weak or confused or at cross purposes. 
If a college or university will perform with quiet diligence its in- 
valuable services — in all honesty and simplicity and straightfor- 
ward thoroughness, no outside force can seriously harm it. In 
short, I have spoken plainly of deficiencies and of mistakes and of 
disorders, but it is to be remembered that faithful are the wounds 
of a friend. 



APPENDIX 

NOTE ON THE SUBJECT OF PART I 

Part I — pages 1 to 70 — was published in advanced sheets in Decem- 
ber, 1912. If it were desirable it would not be practicable to extend to 
date the "historical summary" there given (pp. 13-18) ; but the events 
of the two years that have intervened would give no new light. For 
instance, the "threatened calamity" (pp. 16-17) in Kansas came to pass in 
1913; and in the spring of the same year all of Idaho's state educational 
institutions went under one governing board. To rehearse the newly ex- 
perienced and impending troubles would be mere repetition. 

An adequate account of the struggle between the University of Wis- 
consin and the State Department of Education would add some important 
warnings, but files of 1913 and 1914 journals will readily supply the data. 

The systematic co-operation established in January, 1914, between Har- 
vard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was an 
important and encouraging event which should be studied in detail by 
administrators. 

In respect to the plans for Texas described in Part I, a brief supple- 
mental statement is necessary: 

Just before the legislature met in January, 1913, the governing boards 
of all the institutions agreed unanimously to the text of a constitutional 
amendment in which the measures recommended in Part I (pp. 33-50) 
were thoroughly incorporated. The Governor submitted it intact to the 
legislature, as an exhibit attached to a special message on the subject of 
the State's work of education. It was introduced in duplicate joint reso- 
lutions in both houses. Prompt committee reports emphasized the care- 
fulness of its preparation and its approval by every organized educa- 
tional interest in the State, and each committee exhorted its house to 
adopt the measure unanimously and without amendment. The situation 
appeared to be one of unparalleled harmony. All that it had been hoped 
at the outset might be accomplished in five years seemed about to be 
achieved in one year. Suddenly this prospect was cast into a strange 
confusion. 

It must suffice to state the following facts: A revolt of students about 
an affair of hazing happened at the A. and M. College. The event was, 
of course, in itself irrelevant to the business of framing a State's organic 
laws; yet it was seized as an occasion for an attempt to move the faculty 
and students of the A. and M. to Austin and make the College a division 
of the University. The bill proposing this (and nothing else), though 
introduced in the first month of the session, was never even considered 
by the legislature; but a peculiar paralysis followed its introduction. 
When the time came to vote on the great deliberate measure, the House 
gave it unanimous approval excepting two votes, but the Senate failed to 
give the required two-thirds. 

There were honest differences of opinion as to what the Senate's action 
would have been if the confusion had never arisen; but it would be very 
unfair, under the circumstances, to blame the legislature. Neither ought 
any institution or corporate body be accused, for none such broke the faith 
of its agreement. It would be l^est if everyone would banish all thought 
of blame. The proponents of the antagonistic measure had good inten- 
tions; and the few who approved it eitlier believed it to be the best way, 
or feared that the settlement agreed to after a year's study and consul- 



516 APPENDIX 

tation might not be adopted by the legislature and concluded that its 
opposite was preferable to no action. All should now strive to restore 
confidence for a renewal of the enterprise in harmonious co-operation. 
Look upon the frustration of the first attempt as a case like the battle 
that was lost by the loss of a horse-shoe nail, and do not fear to try again. 

It would be profitless to discuss a constitutional amendment afterwards 
submitted to the people by the same legislature. Xo permanent interest 
attaches to it. It dealt with bond issuing powers of various state and 
local authorities, and did nothing in the way of organizing or providing 
support for the educational institutions. It expressly concerned the lat- 
ter only as authorizing the board of regents of the University to pledge 
the entire university permanent fund for bonds for university buildings; 
but real or supposed implications caused it to be deemed inimical to 
some vested interests of the A. and M. College and to its autonomy. It 
was overwhelmingly defeated. 

This measure, known in bitter pre-election discussion as S. J. R. No. 18, 
has been confused by persons who did not give close attention to the ante- 
cedent developments, with the measure originally proposed by the Organ- 
ization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions of 
Higher Education and agreed to by all the governing boards. The advent 
in the legislature of the original measure had been heralded abroad but 
its text was never widely distributed — the failure to do so being the main 
symptom of the paralysis mentioned above. Having been an exhibit in 
the Governor's message, it had not been published even in the reports of 
that document. For the convenience of interested readers the following 
synopsis is here recorded: 

House Joint Resolution No. 28 and S. J. R. No. 17 were identical. The entire 
Article VII, Title Public Education, of the Constitution was re\sTitten. The first 
eight sections pro\'ided numerous unquestionable improvements in the public school 
system, universally recognized as greatly needed. 

Sec. 9. Repeats, and adds that the Legislature shall provide for the support and 
development of the University' by tax le\^s appropriation, and bonds, or by any or 
all of them, as may be necessary for a university of the first class. 

Sec. 10. Defines the university permanent fund and directs its investment; auth- 
orizes regents to issue bonds secured bj^ the fund with concurrence of the Governor 
and to be sold by him, to acquire lands "and buildings if necessary so to do. 

Sec. 11. Repeats provisions setting apart lands and funds for the University, and 
transfers to the University the lands set aside for eleemosynary asylums. 

Sec. 12. A. and M. Col. established independent^'^ in exactly the same way as 
University, repeating Sees. 9 and 10 for A. and M. Prairie View Col. established as 
branch of A. & M. 

Sec. 13. 400,000 acres of University land of average value transferred to A. and 
M., or, as A. and M. may elect, securities owned by University of equivalent value. 
[Cf. Sec. 11. for compensation to University. I 

Sec. 14. Regulations for selling University and A. and M. lands. 

Sec. 15. Prairie View Col. shall be provided for by governing board and legislature 
in any or all of ways permitted for other institutions, as may be necessary. 

Sec. 16. Provides for support and development of Col. Indust. Arts for Women 
by any or all of ways permitted for University and A. and M. 

Sec. 17. Same for the State Normal Schools. 

Sec. 18. The Legislature shall lev\' a tax not to exceed ten cents on SlOO to be 
divided: 44% of it to University; 29% to A. and M. College; 18 3-4% to the Normal 
Schools; 5 3-4% to College Indust. Arts; 2 1-2% to Prairie View Col. \Cf. page 38.] 



INDEX 



Accounts, 139-142; 150-154; 157; 161. 

"Adams Act/' 44. 

Administration, 1-2; 38; 74-; 80; 85; 
87; 99-105; 138; 174; 196-; 215; 
225; 230; 240-242; 258; 260; 
315; 335; 352; 407- ; distin- 
guished from organization, 1-2; 
240-242. 

Administration of Curriculum, see 
Curriculum. 

Admission to Courses, 333; 356; 423. 
See Entrance. 

Advertising, 182-195; 225; 244-245; 
431; 437. 

Agassiz, Jean L. R., 166. 

A. & M. Colleges, 72-75; 231. See 
also Texas, A. & M. College of, 
and Experiment Stations. 

Agriculture, 29; 43; 44; 54; 72-74; 
87; 445. See also A. & M. Col- 
leges and Experiment Stations. 

Alabama, University of, 313. 

Alderman, Pres. E. A., 198; 201; 210; 
298. 

Aley, Pres. R. J., 440. 

Alice in Wonderland, 338-341. 

Alumni, 185- ; 190; 351; 369; 461. 

Amherst College, 352. 

Appointments. See Nominations for; 
also 216- ; 220; 255. 

Appropriations, 46; 102- ; 105; 134; 
141; 142-144; 203. 

Aristotle, 413. 

Arnold, Mathew, 272. 

Association of American Universities, 
77-; 192; 391; 421. 

Association of State Universities, 
National, 76-78; 192; 389- 391. 

Athletics — director of public, 233; 
gymnasium director, 233, 447. 
320; 336; 362-; 446-450. 

Babcock, Dr. K. C, 6; 57; 59; 60. 



Bacon, Francis, 93. 

Baker, Pres. J. H., 389. 

Bancroft, George, 273. 

Beloit College, 320. 

Benton, Pres. Guy P., 229. 

Bequests, see Gifts. 

Bergson, Henry, 228. 

Berlin, University of, 298, 460. See 

German Universities. 
Bessey, Dean C. E., 95; 96; 470. 
Birdseye, C. E., 451- ; 453-; 461. 
Birge, Dean E. A., 64; 253. 
Board. See Governing Board. 
Boeckh, Philip August, 271; 303. 
Bookkeeping, 139-142; 151-152. 
Boydoin College, 320. 
Briggs, Dean L. B. R., 318. 
Brown, Dr. F. C, 432; 434. 
Bryan, Pres. W. L., 30; 46; 389. 
Budget, 134; 142-144. 
Buildings, 37; 39; 67-; 110; 136; 

147; 148-150; 165; 171; 202; 

210; 452. 
Bullard, Mr. S. A., 97; 259. 
Burger, G. A., 303. 
Business Management, 103; 105. Pt. 

II, Chap. Ill, 138-195; 230; 245; 

250; 251; 428. 
Butler, Pres. Nicholas Murray, 86; 

222; 357; 391. 

California, University of, 66; 253. 

Cambridge, University of, 119; 444; 
445. See English Universities. 

Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- 
ment of Teaching — bulletins on 
medical education, 10; a needed 
service by, 77-; 391: forms for 
financial reports, 152; Bulletin 
on "Academic and Industrial 
Efficiency," 154-174; Study of 
College Advertising, 183-195. See 
also Pritchett, Pres. H. S. 



518 



INDEX 



Carruth, Vice-Pres. W. H., 17; 252. 

Catalogs, 158; 179; 188; 245; 313. 

Catholic University of America, 188. 

Cattell, Prof. J. McKean, 117; 313. 

Central Boards of Control, 5; inex- 
pediency of, 11-23; 32; 76. 

Chairman of Department. See De- 
partments; also, 205; 219; 222; 
246; 249-; 425. 

Chairman of Governing Board, 97-; 
240. 

Chairman of Faculty, 225-. See Dean. 

Chandler, Prof. E. F., 355. 

Chicago City, 60; 62. 

Chicago, University of, 9; 184; 354. 

Christensen, Mr. J. C, 140; 146. 

Cicero^ 265. 

Cincinnati^ University of, 66. 

Co-education, 492; 496-511. 

College, see Nomenclature^ 76. 

College de France. See French uni- 
versities. 

Colleges, — number and sorts of, 59; 
61-; 74; 184- ; 192-. See Co- 
operation. 

Columbia University, 109; 172; 320. 

Commission, Royal, on University 
Education, 279-298. 

Committees, — of governing board, 115, 
170- ; of faculty, 133, 226, 244. 

Comptroller, State, 139-140. 

Consolidation of diverse institutions, 
5-9; 72-; 75-. 

Cooke, Mr. Morris Llewellyne, 154-170. 

Coolidge, Prof. Archibald Cary, 277. 

Cooper, Mr. C. S., 81. 

Co-operation, 18; 30; 33; 49; by 
Federal Government, 44, 54-; be- 
tween universities and colleges, 
59-, 63, 74, 515; between univer- 
sities and high schools, 58-, 369-, 
374-; between universities and 
theological seminaries, 65- ; by in- 
dividual citizens, 67-70; within 
departments, 102; in advertising, 
192; in research, 192; 431; 513; 
515. 



Cornell, Ezra, 85; 86; 497. 

Cornell University, 85-; 111; 118- ; 

120-125; 232; 237; 329; 373; 

442; 457; 496. 
Correspondence Courses, 87; 184; 

231; 445. 
"Cost per student," 157-169; 178. 
Councils, Faculty, 126-135; 141; 199; 

204; 217. 
Course, see Nomenclature, 76. 
Courses of Study, 46; 72; 77; 96; 

333; 344-; 349-; 356; 423; 431- ; 

435; 438. Seel also. Curriculum, 

Administration of ; Curricula, 

Existing College. 
Craighead, Pres. E. B., 78; 385. 
Creighton, Prof. J. E., 263; 265. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 384. 
Curricula, Existing College, 3 13-. See 

Curriculum, Administration of. 
Curriculum,, see Nomenclature, 76. 
Curriculum, Administration of, Pt. 

II, Chap. VI; see Courses. 

Dante, 405. 

Davenport, Director Eugene, 99 ; 203 ; 
205. 

Dean, 119; 125; 127; 140-141; 146 
174; 180; 182; 221; 229; 230 
236; 251; 256; 334; 344; 357- 
470. The Deanship, 238-243. 

Defectives, Schools for^ 32. 

Deficits, 150. 

Degrees, 48; 60; 62; 154; 184; 189 
190; 273-274; 275-; 283; 289- 
312-; 315; 317; 331-333; 341-344 
390- ; 399; 404; 418- ; 420; 423 
460. 

Democracy, 118; 171; 191; 194; 210; 
238; 399-; 403; 413; 441; 449; 
465. 

Department, see Nomenclature, 76. 

Departments, 47; 75; 99-; 103; 119; 
141; 143; 146; 155; 158-; 161; 
173; 198; 202; 203; 219; 222; 
246; 324; 331; 423-. Depart- 
ment Organization, 247-254; 425. 



INDEX 



519 



Director, 102; 119; 230-233; 238; 

246. 
Discipline, 275; 329; 345; 415. 
Dismissal, — of member of faculty, 

216-222, 256-, 259; of student 

from course or college, 333, 342, 

345-349, 495. 
Disorganization, — three sources of, 

briefly contrasted, 2-3; effects of, 

72-; 129; 351. 
Division, see Nomenclature, 76. 
Dodgson, Rev. C. L., 338; 340-. 
Dormitories, 451-469. 
Draper, Commissioner A. S., 3; 30; 

90; 97; 214. 
Dropping, — of member of faculty, 216- 

222, 255-, 259; of student from 

course or from college, 333-, 342-, 

345-349, 495. 
"Duplication," 6-9; 19; 26; 71; 295; 

431; 513. 
Dyche, Mr. Wm. A., 151. 

Echols, Prof. W. H., 493. 
Education, see Ideals. 
Efficiency, 4; 73; 138; mistaken anal- 
ogies, 154-169; suggestions, 170- 

177; 435-442. 
Elective System, 270- ; 277; 318- ; 

320; 322-333; 355; 422. 
Elementary schools, 357, 386-398; 

411. 
Eliot, Pres. Charles W., 97; 119; 

148; 151; 165; 179; 183; 235; 

236; 240; 242; 244; 256; 260; 

275; 323; 326; 330; 422. 
Emerson, Mr. Harrington, 174. 
English Universities, 121; 215; 222; 

272; 279-298; 301-. 
Entrance requirements, 182; 275- 

276; 315; 357; 369-373; 374- 

386; 389-; 391-; 440. 
Evening Post, New York, 109; 165. 
Examinations, 272; 275; 279; 289-; 

294; 378. 
Executive ability, 1; as to governing 

board, 92; as to officer of gov- 

ernins board, 94, 101. 



Expansion, University policies of, 46-; 

86-; 110; 278; 288; 435. 
Experiment Stations, Agricultural 

44-45; 102; 231; 247. 
Extension Division, 444-446; 451. 

Faculties, 46; 72; 74; 88-; 95-; 99- 
105; 106; 234-; 410; 415; 418; 
424; 429-; Status of, 111-118; 
participation in government, 118- 
135; practicable solutions, 125- 
135; "productive time," 162-169; 
clerical work, 173, 242; records, 
179-182, 244; eliminating from, 
213-222; meetings, 226, 235-, 
296; committees, 236, 244; ten- 
ure, 235, 254-; rank, tenure, sal- 
aries, 254-; recruiting, 260. See 
Curriculum, Administration of, 
etc. 

Faguet, Emile, 400; 412. 

Faraday, 442. 

Farm and Ranch, 43; 48. 

Federal Government, 54-; 60. 

Fees, 161. 

Fellowships, 190. 

Feuerbach, P. J. A., 303. 

Fichte 303, 410; 417. 

Financial basis, 4; 35-; 431- ; 435-. 
Reports and Audits, 150-154; 159. 

Fischer, Kuno, 460. 

Flexner, Mr. Abraham, 10; 78. 

Florida, 13. 

Forbes, Prof. S. A., 106. 

Forestry, 161. 

Foster, Pres. W. T., 257; 276; 312; 
320; 353; 358. 

"Foster Bill," 54. 

Fraternities, 451-469. 

Freedom of Learning, 270-. See Elec- 
tive System, and Students. 

Freedom of Teaching, 220; 262-274 
292; 442. 

French Universities, 89; 222; 228 
271; 272; 301-. 

Freshmen, 63; 328; 334; 337; 346- 
416; 423; 438. See Students. 

Friendship, 205; 311; 460. 



520 



INDEX 



Funds. See Permanent Funds. 

Oalileo, 82. 

Oauss, Jcliann Karl Friedrich, 303. 

Oellert, Christian F., 303. 

•General Education Board, 391. 

•Georgia, 14. 

German universities, 74; 88; 121; 
213- ; 215; 222; 266-; 272-273; 
280; 300- ; 333; 407- ; 460. 

Gifts, 67; 149-150; 151; 436. 

Gildersleeve, Basil L., 166. 

Gilman, Pres. Daniel Coit, 110. 

Gneist, Heinrich Eudolf, 271. 

Goethe, 417. 

Governing Board, 2; 170; 200; 237; 
240; 351; 352; 513; ex ojf. mem- 
bers, 20, 25; "representative" 
members, 21; term of oj0&ce, 21, 
23, 25. Pt. II, Chap. II, 85-137. 
See also Business Management. 

Grading, 357-368-; 467. 

Graduate departments and divisions, 
8; 47-; 88-; 190; 192; 238; 270- ; 
283-287; 299; 301- ; 329; 421- 
444. See Research. 

Grandgent, Prof. Charles H., 399; 
404- ; 447. 

Gray, Pres. Edward McQueen, 378. 

Grounds and Buildings, 148-150. 

Group, see Nomenclature, 76, 

Group System, 325-. 

Hadley, Pres. Arthur Twining, 477. 

Haldane, Richard Burdon, of Cloan, 
298. 

Hall, Pres. G. Stanley, 267, 506, 508. 

Haller, A. von, 303. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 223; 414. 

Harnack, Adolf, 306. 

Harvard University, 53; 66; 151 
165; 184; 185; 239; 250; 277 
316; 318-; 320-; 330; 332; 353 
354; 357; 369-; 422; 452; 515. 

*'Hatch Act,*' 44. 

Head of Department. See Chairman. 

Hegel, 303. 

Heidelberg, University of, 460. 



Helmholz, Hermann von, 266; 284; 
303. 

Hermann, G., 303. 

Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf, 442. 

High Schools, 29-32; 58; 88; 327; 
334; 343-; 369-; 374-386; 387- 
391-; 396; 398; 411; 415; 439; 
440; 503-508. 

Hill, Pres. Albert Ross, 248-; 252-; 
389-. 

Homes of students, 106; 451-469. 

Honor System, 278; 477-496. 

Hopkins, see Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity. 

Hour, Student. See Student-Hour. 

Humbolt, Alexander and William 
von, 302. 

Hutchins, Pres. H. B., 252; 254. 

Hutten, Ulrieh von, 409. 

Huxley, Thomas H., 110. 

Hygiene, public, 46; 231. 

Idaho, 515. 

Ideals, 210; 234; 274-311; 399; 512. 

Illinois, University of, 9; 20; 57; 98; 

136; 154; 185. 
Industrial Training, 398-. 
Institute de France, 89; 302. 
Instructors, 112; 127; 168; 219; 222; 

252; 255-; 261. 
Iowa, University of, 12; 14; 355. 
James, Pres. E. J., 57; 212. 

Jastrow, Prof. Joseph, 109; 111; 201; 

224; 227; 257. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 275; 414; 478. 
Johns Hopkins University, 9; 109; 

117; 166; 273; 419; 444. 
Johnston, Pro. J. B., 424. 
Jones^ Dr. Richard, 136. 
Jordan, Pres. David Starr, 230. 

Kane, Pres. Thos. F., 323; 445. 
Kansas, University of, 16-18; 67; 515. 
Kansas City, Mo., 387. 
Kant, 303. 
"Keene Bill," 17. 
Kingsley, Charles, 265. 



INDEX 



521 



Kirchoff, G. E., 303. 

Laboratories, 46; 144- ; IGl; 172; 
247; 251; 281; 288. 

Law Schools, 186; 299; 305; 333; 
419. 

Law — distinction between law and 
edicts, 41 1-. 

Lectures, — attendance by colleagues, 
218, 228, 350; delivered by pres- 
ident, 227-228; attendance with- 
out "credit" by students, 228, 
344, 349-350, 404, 444; evening, 
288; as method of teaching, 284. 

Legislatures, 3; 13-18; 30; 43; 48-; 
50-; 61; 67; 71; 85; 138; 142; 
262-; 352; 513; 515. 

Lehrfreiheit. See Freedom of Learning. 

Leland Stanford, Jr., University, 9; 
117; 183; 230. 

Lernfreiheit. See Freedom of Learn- 
ing. 

Libraries, 46; 145; 246. 

Liebig, 303, 442. 

Lile, Prof. Wm. Minor, 479. 

Lister Institute, 286. 

Loan Fund, Student, 437. 

London, University of, 279-298. 

Louisiana, Tulane University of, 78. 

Lowell, Pres. A. L., 167. 

Luckey, Prof. G. W. A., 29. 

Luther, 303. 

McGill University, 192. 

McVey, Pres. F. L., 252. 

Madison, James, 276. 

Manager, Business, 144-148; see also 
Business Management. 

Manual Training, 400-. 

Marriage, 261; 502; 509-. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
ogy, 114; 515. 

Mauck, Pres. J. W., 107. 

Maurice, Frederick Denison, 409. 

Medical Association, American, 385. 

Medicine, schools of, 10; 41; 45-46; 
78; 161; 186; 231; 299; 305; 
333; 385; 418; 433. 



Melanchthon, 303. 

Mezes, Pres. S. E., 85. 

Miama University, 27. 

Michigan, University of, 10; 20; 185; 

252. 
Mill, John Stuart, 132. 
Mines, schools of, 8; 54-58. 
Minnesota, University of, 18. 
Mississipni, 14. 
Missouri, University of, 250; 253; 

356; 357-! 420. 
Moltke, Helmuth, Count von, 175. 
Montana, University of, 14. 
Montesquieu, 223; 412. 
Moulton, Prof. Richard G., 444. 
Muller, J., 271. 

Munroe, Mr. James P., 112; 116. 
Miinsterberg, Hugo, 389. 
Museums, 56; 67-70; 246. 
Music, 401. 

National Association of State Uni- 
versities, 76-78; 192; 389-; 391. 

]Sr. E. A. Committee on Articulation 
of High Schools and College, 382. 

Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 414; 
512. 

New York State, 120; 154. 

New Zealand, University of, 291. 

Niebuhr, Barthold G., 303. 

Nietzsche, Fredrich Wilhelm, 306; 
417. 

Nomenclature adopted by Nat. Assn. 
St. Univs, {department, course, 
college, school, group, curriculum, 
division), 76. 

Nomination for appointments, 104; 
133; 199; 203; 204; 213-222; 
226; 255-259; 469. 

Normal Schools, 24-; correlation with 
colleges, 26, 31; in Texas, 36,38. 

North Dakota, UniA^ersity of, 354. 

Ohio, small colleges in, 7; 61. 
Ohio State University, 27. 
Ohio University, 27. 
Oklahoma, 14-15. 
Oregon, University of, 15; 66. 



522 



INDEX 



Organization, Features of, for which 
state legislatures are responsible, 
Part I. Internal, Part II; dis- 
tinguished from administration, 
1-2; 240-242. 80; 85; 95; 99; 
106; 132; 136; 170-178; 179; 
196- ; 202; 205-206; 223; 237; 
247; 335; 351; 512. See Ideals. 

Oxford, University of, 119, 137. See 
English Universities. 

Partridge, Capt. Alden, 353. 

Pasteur, 442. 

Patmore, Coventry, 380. 

Paulsen, Prof. Fdererick, 266-; 270- ; 

300; 407; 409; 415; 460. 
Peabody Institute, Baltimore, 444. 
Pennsylvania, University of, 66. 
Pensions, 262. 

Permanent Funds, 125; 138; 151. 
Perry, Prof. E. D., 86. 
Philosophy, 228; 306; 329. 
Plato, 418. 
Post, Netv York Evening, 109; 165- 

167. 
Pott, Prof. W. S. A., 485. 
Preparation, 192- ; 341- ; 440. 
Prescribed courses, 314-322; 327-; 333. 

See also Elective System. 
President, 2; 89; 94; 96-; 104; 115; 

119; 121; 118-135; 140-141; 170; 

173-; 176; 180; 182; 186. Pt. 

II, Chap. IV, 196-233; 236; 237; 

239; 240; 244; 247; 251; 257-; 

352-353; 469. 
Press, University, 287. See also Pub- 
lications. 
Princeton University, 170- ; 320; 460. 
Principles, 79-83; 85; 254; 263-; 

274-311; 418. 
Pritchett, Pres. H. S., 15; 60; 61; 64; 

78; 112; 151-; 154; 169; 180; 

215; 275. 
Privat-Docent, 112; 214; 273. 
Prizes for all, 341; 420; 440. 
Probationary Appointments, 216; 218; 

220; 255-259; 261. 



Promotions, 133; 199; 253; 255-; 

258-. 
Publications, University, 183; 244- 

245; 287. 
Publicity Bureau, 182; 189; 205; 244, 

See Advertising. 
Pufendorf, S. von, 303. 
Purchasing Agent, 145; 428. See 

also Business Management. 
Pure food and drug laws, 43. 

Quality, 82; 107- ; 163; 219; 370-. 
Credit for, 353-357; 373; 420. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 287. 
Rank, 254-. 

Ranke, Leopold von, 271; 303. 
Reckitt, Mr. Ernest, 141; 154; 159. 
Recruiting a Faculty, 260- ; 442. 
Reed College, 188; 355; 357. 
Reeves, Mr. Pember, 296. 
Regents, see Governing Board. 
Registrar, 178-182; 230; 256. 
Reports. Financial and audits, 150- 

154. Statistical, 158-. See also 

Catalogs. 
Research, 49; 54; 73-74; 106; 116 

152- ; 190; 192; 238; 283-287 

299; 301- ; 305; 309; 421- ; 430- 

440-. 
Resignations, 213. 
Rice Institute^ 9. 
Rivalry under precarious support, 5-; 

8; internal effects of, 71-; 75-76; 

111; 431; 513. 
Roberts, Gov. 0. M., 51-52. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 89. 
Ruckert, Friedrich, 303. 
Ruskin, John, 94; 307. 

Sage, Henry Williams, 496. 

Salaries, 88-; 112; 152- ; 157- ; 164; 
213; 225; 253; rank, tenure, sal- 
aries, 254-160. 

Savigny, Friedrich Karl von, 271; 
303. 

Savigny, L. von^ 272. 

Sayers, Ex-Gox. Joseph D., 400. 



INDEX 



523 



Schelling, F. W. J. von, 303. 
Schiller, 303. 

Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 271; 303. 
Scholarships ,189; 190; 436. 
School. See Nomenclature, 76. 
Schurnian, Pres. Jacob G., Ill; 118-; 

120; 125; 196; 198; 232; 237; 

239; 263; 457. 
Science, 67; 117; 165; 263. 
Secondary Schools, 88; 281; 300; 

305; 327; 334; 343; 369-; 374- 

386; 387; 391; 396; 398; 408; 

415; 439; 440. 
Secretary of governing board, 146-. 

Secretaries of faculties, 236; 

243-; 256. 
Slosson, Mr. E. E., 194, 460, 477, 497. 
Smith, Prof. Wm. Benj., 199. 
Society of Educational Research, 392. 
Solomon, 137. 
Sorbonne, 89. 
Sororities, 465-466. 
South Dakota, 15. 
Stanford. See L^land Stanford, Jr., 

University. 
Starchy Prof. Daniel, 366. 
Statistics, 4; 80-; 169; 391; 392. 

See Reports. 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 448. 
Strassburg, University of, 52. 
Strong, Chancellor Frank, 16; 21; 

132. 
Stubbs, Governor W. R., 17. 
Student-Hour, 156- ; 178. 
Students, 84; 158- ; 169; 179; 186; 

192; 202; 214; 218; 227; 228-; 

234; 270- ; 280- ; 283-; 294-296; 

303- ; 324-; 328-; 337-; 342; 344- 

352; 371; 420- ; 431; 438-; 448-. 

Part II, Chap. VII. 
Students' Aid Bureau, 245-; 437. 
Sumner, Prof. W. G., 501. 
Support, 53. See Rivalry, Financial 

Basis, Appropriations, Tax. 
Swift, Jonathan, 338. 

Tacitus, 386. 

Taft, Ex-Pres. W. H., 411. 



Tarbell, Miss Ida M., 107. 

Tax, State, fixed apportionment to 

separate institutions, 8; 71-73; 

necessary tax for Texas and its 

apportionment, 34-50. 
Taylor, Mr. F. W., 175. 
Technology, 42; 73; 279; 281- ; 287-; 

294-; 333. 
Tenure, 254-; 262. See Appoint- 
ments. 
Texas, A. & M. College of, 5 ; 25 ; 33 ; 

42-; 515. See A. & M. Colleges; 

Agriculture. 
Texas, University of, 8; 23; 33-; 45; 

47-48: 50-; 53; 65; 66; 71; 148; 

239; 316; 388; 515. 
Theological Seminaries, 65-; 161; 305. 
Thilly, Prof. Frank, 266; 300; 409. 
Thorndike, Prof. E. L., 320. 
Thornton, Prof. Wm. M., 477, 478, 

488. 
Thomasius, Christian, 303. 
Tieknor, Prof. George, 353. 
Toronto, University of, 172. 
Trade Schools, 402-. 
Treitschke, 303. 
Tulane University of Louisiana, 78. 

Udden, Dr. J. A., 67. 

Uhland, Johann Ludwig, 303. 

U. S. Bureau of Education, 6; 57; 59. 

Universities. Policies of expansion, 
46-; 110; 278; 288. Private 
services, 57. Co-operation with 
colleges, 58-; 62-; 74. Relations 
with high schools, 58; 88; 347-; 
369-; 374-386; 438-; 440. Rela- 
tions with theological seminaries, 
65-. Number of students, 64; 
73; 75-; 345; 385; 404: 437; 
441 ; 447. All-incluping concep- 
tion, 86; 435; 445-446; 451. Two 
theories of management, 99-105. 
Essential work, 106; 275; see 
Ideals. American, 85; 94; 116 
118-; 120-; 125-; 214; 218; 223 
258; 263; 266; 299; 301 
374-; 408; 432. European, 73 



524 



INDEX 



A 



74; 112; 121; 184; 218; 222 
333. German, 74; 88; 121; 214 
215; 222-226; 272; 300; 407 
English, 121; 215; 222; 272 
279-; 301; 460. French, 89; 222 
271; 272; 301. University edu 
cation, 279-298. Ideals, 210; 
234; 274-310. See Financial 
Basis, Business Management, Sup- 
port, Organization, Admintstra- 
tion. Faculty, Curriculum, Grad- 
uate Division, etc. 
University Education, Report of 
Royall Commission on, 279-298. 

Valparaiso University, 185. 

Van Hise, Pres. C. R., 7; 11-; 15; 

17-19; 23; 66; 445; 457. 
Venable, Pres. F. P., 252. 
Verulam, Lord, 93. 
Vilas, William F., 12. 
Virginia, 19. 
Virginia, University of, 53; 188; 210; 

275-; 277-; 317; 478-. 
Visitor of Schools, 385. 
Vocational courses, 403-. 

Wabash College, 320; 449. 



Waitz, Georg, 271; 303. 

Washington, George, 414. 

Washington City, 60; 62. 

Weierstrass, 303. 

Wellesley College, 320. 

Wesleyan University, 320. 

West Virginia, 15. 

Wheeler, Pres. Benj. Ide, 253. 

White, Pres. Andrew D., 410; 497. 

\^^ite, Mr. Peter, 20. 

William and Mary, College of, 276. 

Williams College, 320. 

Wilson, Pres. Woodrow, 452. 

Wisconsin, University of, 12; 28; 61; 

64; 67; 145; 182; 185; 250; 

253; 366; 475; 515. 
Wolf, F .A., 271; 303. 
Wolff, Christian, 303. 
Wonderland, Alice in, 338-341. 
Woodward, Pres. R. S., 81. 
Women, State College for (Texas), 

5; 39-41. 
Wyoming, University of, 313. 

Yale University, 117; 160; 166; 319; 
353; 477. 



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